Mayor Eric Adams signed several bills into law on Tuesday aimed at fixing pay disparities in the city’s municipal workforce.
The pay equity bills would require city agencies to analyze compensation data and efforts to bridge pay disparities annually, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to set up a three-year review of several city worker positions and DCAS to assess its own work to hire a diverse pool of applicants. Plus, they would amend the city’s Pay Equity Law by mandating DCAS provide more data to the City Council, so it can more effectively tackle pay disparities across the city’s vast bureaucracy.
“Our city workers keep our city going and I see how hard they work to ensure that New Yorkers get the services they need and deserve,” Adams said, during a bill signing public hearing at City Hall on Tuesday morning.
Adams inked the legislation on the heels of reaching a tentative agreement with District Council 37 (DC37) — one of the city’s largest municipal unions — last Friday that included raises totaling 16% over the next five years.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who sponsored one of the bills, said this legislative push to tackle equal pay among city workers was sparked by findings of a 2022 council report that showed pay disparities between different titles and “occupational segregation” that’s placed women and people of color in the lowest paid jobs within the municipal ranks.
The speaker said that the municipal workforce has traditionally provided a path to the middle class, especially for Black and Latino individuals, including her own mother.
“But the promise of civil service and the health of our municipal workforce are undermined when we allow pay disparities that disproportionately impact women and people of color to persist,” the speaker said.
“We’re taking critical next steps to eliminate pay disparities and enact policies that promote greater diversity and equity in our workforce,” she added.
The package also included bills sponsored by Council Members Carmen De La Rosa (D-Manhattan) and Farah Louis (D-Brooklyn).
“Advancing pay parity and diversity in our municipal workforce is a top priority for the City Council and this administration,” Louis said. “Equal pay for equal work is not only a moral imperative but a fundamental right, and the cornerstone of a just society.”
Along with the three pay equity bills, the mayor also signed five others geared toward improving accessibility for New Yorkers with disabilities who are either homeless or living in affordable housing. That legislation aims to establish an “accessibility advisory board” to give recommendations on making city shelters more accessible and to require signage directing people to power-operated doors in buildings that have them.
Another bill in the package, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson (D-Brooklyn), would mandate the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) draft a list of accessible design features and require developers receiving funds from the city include “universal design” features in all new projects. Those features include clearances to door handles instead of knobs, accommodations for wheelchairs and lower adjustable countertops.
“I always say that when we design and plan and legislate for those who are most vulnerable, then everybody benefits,” Hudson said.
“When you think about even something as simple as a doorknob, if you plan for older adults who might be experiencing arthritis, and then you think about veterans or other folks with disabilities who might be missing limbs, and think about the type of door levers as opposed to having to put your hand around a door knob and turn it,” she added. “That’s the type of change and that’s the type of accessibility that we’re creating with this bill.”
