2024 Labor Power Players

Under the leadership of President Daniel C. Levler, Suffolk AME has become a key player among lawmakers, community leaders, and other unions. Having started his career with Suffolk County in 2006, Levler was first elected to the Executive Board in 2015 as executive vice president. Levler has since been re-elected to the Board three times and has served as Suffolk AME president since 2017. Levler also serves as co-chair of NYSPEC, a statewide leadership role.

What led you down your current career path?
Seeing firsthand the challenges faced by my fellow Suffolk County workers inspired me to take action. Suffolk AME provides a collective voice for our workers, allowing us to negotiate fair wages, benefits, and improved workplace environments. I felt a call to make a difference and advocate for positive change in the lives of hardworking individuals, and my role at Suffolk AME has allowed this to come to fruition.

What does your organization hope to accomplish in 2024?
With a new county administration for the first time in over a decade, Suffolk AME looks forward to negotiating fair and competitive wages for our members, ensuring they receive the compensation they deserve in our upcoming contract. We also strive to protect and improve upon our numerous benefit offerings. Finally, we are committed to fostering a sense of unity and solidarity among our members through community engagement initiatives.

What are the benefits that union membership (your union if applicable) provides?
As both workers and community members, Suffolk AME members have a vested interest in safeguarding the high quality of life we enjoy in Suffolk County. Through collective bargaining, Labor Unions give their members the power to negotiate for improved working conditions, better benefits, and higher wages than their non-union counterparts. Additionally, Suffolk AME is the only non-uniform union in NYS with a health and welfare trust to supplement members’ retirement and assist with health care costs.

Peter Lilli began his career as a Nassau County Correction Officer in 2001. Over his 22 years of service, he worked his way up the ranks – being promoted to corporal in 2014, sergeant in 2017 and lieutenant in 2022. In 2022, Peter was elected delegate to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Correction Officers Benevolent Association. He was elected union president in 2023 by an overwhelming margin of victory, promising to make the union more membership-driven.

What led you down your current career path?
I was attracted to a career in public service and took the test to become a correction officer so I could serve on the front lines of our county’s criminal justice system in a field that offered promotional opportunities, professional advancement, and great benefits.

What does your organization hope to accomplish in 2024?
My members aren’t just officers – they are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters and I believe that we, as a union, can get more involved in our communities and give back to our neighborhoods. The more appreciated our membership feels and the more we are engaged with the public, the more our elected officials will be receptive to our fight for better working conditions, higher pay and mitigate recruitment and retention issues.

What are the benefits that union membership (your union if applicable) provides?
My union provides a full range of membership benefits including but not limited to, legal representation to protect our members’ employment rights, health, optical, and dental benefits, scholarships, and financial assistance for the widows and children of our bereaved officers.

William M. Lynn has served as IUOE Local 30 business manager and financial secretary since being elected in 2014. Business Manager Lynn also serves as vice president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, a position he’s held since 2019. In addition to the IUOE, Lynn holds leadership positions at several labor organizations including the Municipal Labor Council, New York Public Employee Conference, Nassau-Suffolk Building Trades, Long Island Advisory Council, Cornell’s ILR Climate Jobs Institute.

UNITEHERE! Local 100 represents over 20,000 service workers pre-COVID in New York, many of them in food service throughout several business sectors. Jose Maldonado took over as president in 2021 after several years as secretary treasurer. Maldonado’s time with Local 100, since taking over, has strived to raise standards and push for $20 minimum. He’s also dedicated to securing pension plans, family health care, as well as boosting membership since it declined after the 2020 pandemic.

Rich Maroko is the president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, the union representing nearly 40,000 workers in the hotel and gaming industries in New York and New Jersey. During his 20 years at the union, Rich has distinguished himself as a fierce negotiator and advocate for workers. He has overseen the union’s explosive growth in NJ and NY where HTC doubled the number of union hotels.

Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga is a seasoned public servant across all levels of government with extensive experience in consumer protection, workers’ rights, and engagement with immigrant New Yorkers. Mayuga graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Boston University. She received her law degree from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law and is a member of the New York Bar.

What led you down your current career path?
Both my parents instilled in me the duty we have to help others. Going to college outside of Puerto Rico, where I grew up, it became clear that inequities in our society oftentimes prevented those who needed the most help from feeling empowered to use their voice and demand support. All this inspired me to pursue a career in law, and most importantly in public service, to help individuals and families succeed and thrive.

What does your organization hope to accomplish in 2024?
We look forward to continuing to enforce key worker protections – like our Delivery Worker laws and the Fair Workweek Law – in close collaboration with worker advocates and partners in organized labor. A key aspect of protecting workers is ensuring they are aware of the rights they’re entitled to. This spring, we’ll be releasing an updated Workers’ Bill of Rights, providing our city’s workers with a comprehensive, multilingual summary of workers’ rights across industries.

​​Gloria Middleton became president of CWA Local 1180 in 2018. She is the first African American and first female to lead the 9,000 active-member local. She is chair and trustee for the Local’s Benefits and Annuity funds, is the diversity member-at-large eastern region for the national CWA, is treasurer of the Municipal Labor Committee, executive board member of the Central Labor Council, and co-chair of the Public Employees Conference.

Michael Mulgrew is the fifth president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents nearly 200,000 New York City public school educators and school-related professionals, as well as child care providers, nurses, adult education instructors, retired members and other titles and organizations. Re-elected to his fifth full term in spring 2022, Mulgrew has served as president since July 2009.

Kevin Mulvehill is a partner at Phillips Lytle and a member of its governing committee. He is the leader of its labor and employment team. He focuses his practice in the areas of labor and employment law; wage and hour law; class and collective actions; commercial litigation; and corporate law. He provides counsel and strongly advocates on behalf of his clients. He is also a frequent lecturer on labor and employment and other business-related topics.

What does your organization hope to accomplish in 2024?
Phillips Lytle will continue to embrace technology, foster a culture of innovation, invest in talent development and prioritize diversity and inclusion. The partners of Phillips Lytle strive to make our firm a place where employees love coming to work.

Luca Negrino joined the labor movement in 2009 when he worked at a Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW-represented Foodtown supermarket and became a union member. He was brought on staff of Local 338 nearly a decade later as an organizer, after working on organizing campaigns for the United Food and Commercial Workers in 2017. Currently, he is part of Local 338’s cannabis team as a union representative and organizer, representing workers across NYC and Long Island.

What led you down your current career path?
When I was in college, I majored in political science because I was interested in social justice and wanted to help change policy in New York. But once I started doing labor organizing with the UFCW, it felt like a pathway to make change and help people directly. Everyone has to work, but if you can improve your job and better wages through unionizing, then you’re already in a better place than you were before.

What does your organization hope to accomplish in 2024?
As New York’s adult-use industry takes off, we are looking forward to organizing workers across the market. We want to set the standard for workers in the adult-use industry, ensuring they will have the same high wages, strong benefits and industry standards as those already in place for New York’s existing cannabis workforce.

What are the benefits that union membership (your union if applicable) provides?
Unionized cannabis members have won guaranteed wage increases, health care, job security, and paid time off, and our union organizing has increased the industry’s standard for wages and helped set the standard of what jobs in the industry can and should be. Unionization has helped ensure that these jobs will be reliable careers for years to come and ensured that workers are seen as important stakeholders as the industry continues to form.