New York’s new budget includes a measure that speeds up how quickly striking workers can receive unemployment benefits — a change backed by organized labor that could benefit a powerful hospitality union in their upcoming contract fight with city hotel owners.
All New York workers who apply for unemployment must wait one week to collect benefits after losing their job, while striking workers have had to wait an additional two weeks. The new law reduces that striking-worker delay to one week, for a total wait of two weeks.
That change, which was opposed by business groups, is part of a broader deal in the state budget that included paying off New York’s $6 billion unemployment debt to the federal government. That, in turn, allowed the state to complete a long-delayed increase in weekly unemployment benefits, from $504 to $869 by October.
Combined, the beefed-up benefits and shorter wait to receive them could make strikes look a lot more palatable for workers and unions. Gov. Kathy Hochul unexpectedly announced her support for the unemployment deal in early May — days after she met personally with Rich Maroko, president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, which has spent years pushing to reduce the waiting period and increase the weekly payments.
Now, HTC believes those changes will give them added leverage when they negotiate a new all-important master contract with hoteliers. The union’s current 14-year pact expires in July 2026, and talks are expected to ramp up in the coming months.
“We made the act of striking more accessible and more sustainable for the union and its members,” said Bhav Tibrewal, political director for HTC, in an interview. The union’s 40,000 members include the staff of about 300 hotels.
New York’s laws were already labor-friendly — it is one of just two states, along with New Jersey, that give unemployment insurance to workers on strike. New York formerly made striking workers wait an additional eight weeks to get benefits until then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to shorten the period to two in 2020 — a change celebrated by labor but criticized by fiscal conservatives and business groups, who argued the state should not be meddling in labor disputes to help unions.
“The UI system is paid for 100% by taxes on employers. So in every sense, employers are now paying for work stoppages by employees,” said Frank Kerbein, director of the center for human resources at the Business Council of New York State. “You can certainly anticipate greater work stoppages as a result of this generous benefit.”
The Business Council lobbied against the shortened wait for striking workers, alongside other opponents including the Hotel Association of New York City, which represents owners. Their lobbying helped stave off the unions’ even more ambitious ask: to fully eliminate the delay for striking workers and give them the same one-week wait as unemployed people.
Business-world opponents are unhappy with the law change, although hotel owners remain skeptical that HTC will call a strike. Industry executives are keenly aware that a potential July 2026 strike could coincide with the FIFA World Cup matches being held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — an enormous tourist draw that might seem to increase the union’s leverage, but which owners believe will discourage disruptive labor action, a high-ranking industry leader told Crain’s.
Union officials attribute their success to a two-year campaign to shorten the waiting period and increase benefits. Starting during the 2023 budget cycle, HTC teamed up with the New York State AFL-CIO to air television ads, place op-eds and commission polls showing majority support among voters for reducing the “strike penalty,” in the unions’ parlance.
Leaders of the state Senate and Assembly were always receptive, but Hochul held off on committing to the multi-part package, given that it hinged on the multibillion-dollar bailout of the in-debt unemployment fund.
Businesses supported paying off the pandemic-era unemployment debt to ease the burden on employers, but Michael Gianaris, the state Senate’s deputy majority leader, told Crain’s that HTC was the most visible advocate for paying off the debt and boosting benefits — eclipsing even the business world.
“Both of those were things that were raised to me more by [HTC] than the business community,” Gianaris said. “The case is being made that workers were being hurt, there’s no reason to delay these payments, and it would help their cash flow dramatically but not hurt the payers very significantly.”
Facing persistent pressure from HTC, Hochul — who could benefit from the union’s support in her re-election bid next year — “understood how important this was to us,” Tibrewal said.
Kassandra White, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in a statement that Hochul “put striking workers at the forefront by signing legislation to reduce the amount of time they are required to wait before receiving unemployment insurance benefits, while still giving employers a chance to make good with their employees.”
Fresh off the legislative win, union leaders are taking a bullish tone about next year’s high-stakes hotel contract fight.
“The loss of business and operability for a hotel that we are striking will be a cost that they will have to bear,” Tibrewal said, “that we are better able to make them have to bear, as a result of what we’ve won here in this budget.”
