2025 Labor Power Players

Mario Cilento has fought for working people since joining the NYS AFL-CIO in 1992 and becoming president in 2011. Under his leadership, the federation secured protections for public employees, including pension reforms and transparency on state agency AI use. Legislative victories include the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, protections for refusing captive audience meetings, historic labor standards for renewable energy projects, and successful efforts to raise the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation benefits.

Louis Civello grew up in Broad Channel, a small neighborhood located in southern Queens. Hailing from a police family Louis’ lifelong vocation was to serve his community as a law enforcement officer. Louis joined the New York City Police Department in 2000. Today Louis serves as president of the Suffolk County PBA, the County’s largest law enforcement union. Thousands of police officers and their families depend on the PBA to represent them. Louis is committed to continuing the legacy of unsurpassed excellence, fierce advocacy, and relentless defense of law enforcement the SCPBA is known for.

Timothy Connick was appointed PERB chairperson in June of 2024. He has been an attorney for more than 40 years, devoting his practice almost exclusively to labor law and employment litigation, having represented the New York State United Teachers, United University Professionals, Public Employees Federation, Civil Service Employees Association, and New York State Department of Labor. He is a graduate of Albany Law School and the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Rebecca Damon is the chief labor policy officer and New York local executive director for SAG-AFTRA. Damon served as SAG-AFTRA executive vice president and as president of the New York Local. Damon is a vice president of the New York State AFL-CIO Executive Council, a member of the New York City Film and Television Production Industry Council, the New York City Central Labor Council, and a vice president of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
SAG-AFTRA is expanding AI protections across multiple contracts and working on good public policy throughout the nation to protect name, image, voice, and likeness rights.

How can policymakers support your organization?
Policymakers can support SAG-AFTRA by supporting legislation that provides guardrails around the use of AI including the NO FAKES Act. They should also support state tax incentives for film and television production. SAG-AFTRA members will also benefit from the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act which will update the current adjusted gross income cap to match real-world earnings.

What is your favorite part of your job?
Advocating for a worker-centered trade policy and protections for SAG-AFTRA members in a fast-changing technological landscape and increasingly globalized creative industry.

Mr. Vijay Dandapani was appointed president and CEO of the Hotel Association in January 2017. He is an active participant in the hospitality industry and has spoken on hospitality issues at many forums and numerous industry associations. He has written in a number of industry publications on topics affecting the hotel industry. He was appointed by the Governor to the “New York Forward Advisory Board” to guide the state’s reopening strategy post-COVID-19. 

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
Property tax relief for the hotel industry. Real Property Tax has grown nearly 100% since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. Hotel rates in real terms, remain static. Bring about more focused and fair metrics for determining Local 97 compliance owing to the hotel industry’s high occupancy per square foot. Make NYC hotels attractive for meeting planners by lowering occupancy taxes. Facilitate affordable tourism to NYC by re-enabling the development of youth hostels. 

How can policymakers support your organization?

• Support a bill to lower hotel occupancy taxes.
• Provide an abatement for hotels for furniture, fixtures and equipment expenses up to $25K per hotel room to catch up with economic hardship caused by the pandemic as well as utilization for migrant shelter purposes. 
• Urge City Hall and the Department of Finance to provide property tax relief.
• Urge City Hall to gauge hotels appropriately vis-a-vis Local Law 97.

James Davis, professor of English at Brooklyn College, has served as PSC president since 2021. Davis uses his platform to advocate for educational quality and accessibility, racial and economic justice, and professional respect and job security on our campuses. He’s fought to bring new state funding to CUNY, including millions to hire full-time faculty, and prevented the worst of the mayoral cuts to CUNY.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
The PSC already achieved one of its 2025 priorities when membership overwhelmingly ratified a new contract with CUNY that provides members raises and supports student access. The agreement runs through 2027 – includes 13.4% minimum raises with nearly two years of back pay, a $3,000 ratification bonus, and additional “equity” increases in salary for CUNY’s lowest-paid titles. PSC is advocating for a New Deal for CUNY and with significant new investments in CUNY.

How can policymakers support your organization?
In Albany they can:

• Get active with the CUNY Caucus! 
• Support the Share Our Wealth platform of tax reforms.
• Make increased CUNY funding a top priority in the FY26 budget.

In City Hall:

• Push to restore the Mayor’s cuts to CUNY funding

What is your favorite part of your job?
The PSC president is focused on ensuring our 30,000 members are represented and have a voice. During our contract negotiations, we provided an inclusive process for engaging members in every title to develop an ambitious bargaining agenda. That resulted in additional “equity” increases in salary for CUNY’s lowest-paid titles. As an English professor, I’m excited to see what students bring to the classroom and witness their development through the course of the academic year. 

Carmen served as state assembly member of the 72nd District for five years before becoming the first Dominican woman elected to represent District 10 at the New York City Council. She’s been the chair of the Civil Service & Labor Committee for the past four years, co-chair of the Women’s Caucus, and vice-chair of the Progressive Caucus. She’s passed legislation on pay equity, improving the civil service exam and hiring process, and supporting workers’ rights.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
In 2025, the New York City Council Committee on Civil Service and Labor Committee will continue to hone in on agency vacancies, hiring, and retention as well as examine the use of AI in the workplace, DEI programs, EMS/EMT workers, and climate change impacts on the workforce.

As the first Black woman to serve as president of The NewsGuild of New York, the union for 6,000 media workers, Susan DeCarava continues to guide her union’s transformation in her second term. Last year, under her leadership, her union organized a record number of new members, won standard-setting contracts – including for the largest unit of tech workers in the country – trained hundreds of stewards and built campaigns to expand standards throughout the media industry.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
Our mission is to raise the standards of journalism and ethics in the industry. We are committed to organizing more newsrooms to enable media workers to fulfill their professional mandate to hold power to account, to ask tough questions, and to reflect the true breadth of the communities they serve. We will continue the fight to advance the economic interests and improve the working conditions of our members wherever they work.

How can policymakers support your organization?
Our message to policymakers: Support those who report the news and protect their rights to do so. Democracy dies in darkness and it is the responsibility of journalists to shine a light into those dark corners. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that journalists can do their job without corporate or government interference.

What is your favorite part of your job?
Knowing that the work we do collectively may have a profound impact on individual lives is at the heart of everything we do. The community we build, and the fabric of care and mutual aid we weave for and around each other is truly inspiring. There is no more powerful and moving statement as Me = We.

John R. Durso is the president of Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW and the Long Island Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, representing workers across New York and Long Island. He is a member of several different Boards, and is the co-chair for the EAC Network, on the Nassau Community College Board of Trustees, along with the board for the NCC Foundation. John is proudest of the work Local 338 does on behalf of our members and with local charities.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
Local 338’s priority this year is negotiating strong contracts for our members and providing support for them as we navigate the new Trump Administration and the policy changes they are enacting. At the Long Island Federation of Labor, we’re supporting the Sands project here on Long Island, which will bring many new opportunities to working people. We’re also working with the New York State AFL-CIO to promote their priorities, which will benefit workers statewide.

How can policymakers support your organization?
The best way for them to support us is by communicating with us, listening to the needs of our members and considering how their decisions affect the people Local 338 and the Long Island Federation of Labor represents. It is incumbent upon our policymakers to better the lives of the people they represent – and if they are supportive of workers and the labor movement, we want to work with them to make that happen.

What is your favorite part of your job?
The people I work with and the workers we represent. As the president of both Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW and the Long Island Federation of Labor, I get to play a part in improving the lives of working people a little bit every day. It is not lost on me what a privilege that is – and it plays a large part in why I love coming to work each day.

Michelle Eisen is a 14-year Starbucks barista in Buffalo, NY and a leader of Starbucks Workers United. She organized the first unionized Starbucks in the country, galvanizing a movement that has grown to over 540 union stores and 11,000 workers fighting for issues including living wages, better staffing, safer working conditions, and more. Michelle has taught countless other workers how to organize and has been a tireless advocate for baristas and the entire working class.

What are your organization’s goals for 2025?
Fresh off the largest-ever strike in Starbucks’ history, union baristas are united. We’re demanding Starbucks support baristas who are central to the company’s turnaround. We shouldn’t need to choose between paying rent or buying groceries, but for many of us, that’s our reality. We’re ready to finalize strong contracts that include raises for union baristas, and we’re growing our union as more and more baristas organize their stores.

How can policymakers support your organization?
As I said when I testified before the House Education and Labor Committee – it should not take an act of bravery to ensure you have a voice at work. As Starbucks continues to flout the law, baristas continue to organize to hold them accountable. The protections of a union contract are critical now more than ever for American workers and now is the time to stand with Starbucks workers fighting for a better future.

What is your favorite part of your job?
From the beginning, this campaign has been powered by worker-to-worker organizing. As I was organizing my own store, I was also helping workers across the country learn how to organize their own stores. I’m so proud to continue doing that work today and every day, and I know workers will continue to organize and win. Every month, hundreds of Starbucks partners join our movement fighting for strong contracts that include living wages, accessible benefits, and more.