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For Truly Meaningful Progress on Police Discipline and Accountability, New York City Needs Albany’s Help


next step policing

NYPD recruits (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)


An officer slams a driver on the hood of a car during a traffic stop, then punches the driver’s sister twice in the face, and escapes punishment. Another officer draws his gun on an 11- and a 13-year-old playing in a city park, and sees the charges against him dismissed without trial. A lieutenant pushes a man from a crowded sidewalk into traffic, and has his guilty verdict vacated. Dozens of cops with repeated disciplinary citations, including one serial abuser of humiliating full-body searches, rise through the ranks of the NYPD unimpeded. 

Right now, this is how oversight of the NYPD functions – or, more accurately, fails to function. In New York City, despite the existence of a so-called oversight body, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the discipline of police officers for even the worst misconduct comes down to the whims of one man: the Police Commissioner, who is legally empowered to toss out guilty verdicts, ignore investigative findings, and vacate punishments that in many cases were only imposed at all after years of legal wrangling.

Over the last 20 years, the NYPD reduced or eliminated punishment in a whopping 71% of the most serious cases of police misconduct. Recent years have seen little improvement. In 2018, the Police Commissioner dismissed officer punishments issued after a trial in 62% of cases. In 2019, the Police Commissioner reduced or eliminated officer punishments in 49% of non-trial cases, and in 38% of serious charges warranting trial. In the first half of 2020, the NYPD declined any punishment at all in 48% of serious cases that went to trial. Check out the monthly statistics put out by the CCRB and it’s the same story: in cases minor and major, the Commissioner steps in to lessen or vacate officer punishment.

The problem here isn’t just an oblique issue of justice, although it is unjust. When police officers know they are unlikely to be punished for their misconduct – indeed, will likely continue to receive promotions and accrue status – they behave accordingly. As a former CCRB investigator, I saw officers skip out on interviews for weeks. When they did participate, they “forgot” most details of an incident. Today, officers continue to lie to the CCRB without consequence. It is not an agency that is taken seriously.

If it sounds bleak, it is. But I have good news. Last month, the New York City Council passed a resolution formally asking the state government to enact legislation that would remove the Police Commissioner’s exclusive authority to determine police discipline — authority which, by any fair accounting, he has abused.

Now, it is the state’s turn to shoulder some of the responsibility for the largest police force within its borders. While I’ve argued that New York City can go it alone, the current City Council believes it needs the State to pass a new law that modifies the Police Commissioner’s discretion and gives real teeth to the city’s NYPD oversight mechanisms. And on that, I have more good news: there is a bill ready to be taken up, passed, and signed. 

Bronx Senator Jamaal Bailey and Queens Assemblymember Catalina Cruz are sponsoring such legislation (S5252). The bill is narrow, and makes two changes to the law. First, it would remove the Police Commissioner’s authority to reject or modify disciplinary determinations made by the CCRB. Second, it would preserve officer due process while moving disciplinary trials to an independent body (they are currently heard in, you guessed it, the NYPD’s internal court system, another conflict of interest).

These two changes would have a profound effect on policing in New York City, and by focusing solely on accountability for officer misbehavior, are refined and targeted to what should be an uncontroversial reform. This is not defunding – and I say that as a Defunder. Cops who don’t break the rules would never even know this law was passed. This is as close to the lowest hanging fruit of reform as it gets, and yet, it would still provide a measure of accountability that could radically change NYPD culture.

All too often, when a police officer kills an unarmed person, we later learn that he or she had a history of misconduct and nobody stepped in. Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Eric Garner, had seven civilian complaints, with two substantiations – in total, he lost two vacation days and kept actively patrolling the streets right up until the day he choked Garner to death. We can never know if better oversight would have prevented Garner’s killing, but if we are serious about stopping these needless deaths, just doing nothing cannot be an option.

Governor Cuomo wants police reform – indeed, he is demanding it. The vast majority of Assembly members and Senators, moderates and liberals alike, have called for serious fixes to a clearly broken system. In New York City, we want to do our part, and our elected officials could not have been clearer: we need Albany to act. Let us make these vital changes to the law, before we lose one more life to a rogue cop.

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John Teufel is a lawyer, writer, and activist based in Brooklyn. On Twitter @JohnTeufelNYC.

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Competing Visions of Public Banking in New York City


compete vis bank

A Wall Street rally for public banking (photo: @PublicBankNYC)


In recent memory public banking was an idea that belonged either to a distant utopian future or a distant populist past. But today, not only is public banking on the agenda of major New York politicians, but competing visions of public banking are on offer.

The coalition Public Bank NYC (PBNYC) is running a grassroots effort to create a public bank for New York City, while mayoral candidate Andrew Yang proposes to initiate public banking through the mayor’s executive authority. Despite the two camps sharing certain goals, they do not represent the same movement.

Whereas PBNYC’s core goal is to disentangle the city’s finances from Wall Street, Yang includes collaboration with Wall Street companies as part of his public banking proposal. At the same time that Yang’s proposal signals growing support for public banking it also complicates the issue of just what is meant by “public banking.”

PBNYC is a coalition of more than 40 community, labor, and cooperative groups including the New Economy Project and New York Communities for Change. The collective mission of PBNYC is the creation of a municipal chartered bank. That would mean a bank that is both owned and managed by the City of New York, and so is accountable to New York voters. One of PBNYC’s goals for a public bank is the reduction of underbanking. Many of New York’s poorest communities suffer from a lack of access to financial services, especially historically redlined communities of color. Such a lack of access drives individuals to use alternatives like check-cashing services, prepaid debit cards, and high-interest loan services, which are expensive and generally do not contribute to a credit score. One role of a public bank, then, would be to fill this gap left by the market through partnerships with community-based credit unions and loan funds.

But PBNYC’s core goal for a public bank is divestment of public funds from Wall Street. New York City finances its public institutions with tens of billions of dollars of municipal funds collected from taxes and other sources. The city government entrusts these funds to private banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which invest the funds in the stock market to generate additional revenue. These private banks are known to invest in the fossil fuel industry and the private prison industry, and to engage in banking practices such as high overdraft charges that PBNYC deems harmful to New Yorkers. For these reasons, PBNYC states that a public bank should take on the role of investing the city’s municipal funds, both to stop subsidizing Wall Street banks and to make the investment of public funds more transparent and democratically accountable.

Once municipal funds are in the hands of a public bank, PBNYC says they can be diverted out of extractive industries and into green energy, small businesses, workers’ cooperatives, and community land trusts. To realize their mission, PBNYC is putting its organizing behind several legislative initiatives.

One is the New York Public Banking Act, which is sponsored by Queens State Senator James Sanders in the State Senate and Bronx Assemblymember Victor Pichardo in the State Assembly. The Act would not itself create a public bank, but would instead create a legal framework for the creation of a future public bank, as none of New York’s current laws were written with a public bank in mind. The bill is currently in committee in both houses.

PBNYC also supports the banking reform legislation put forward to the New York City Council by City Council Member Mike Levine of Manhattan. If passed, the legislation would mandate that the city government be more transparent in its dealing with the banks that manage municipal funds, and would establish the Council’s official endorsement of the New York Public Banking Act. On April 28 members of the coalition testified at a hearing where the Council was discussing Levine’s legislation.

At the hearing, Andy Morrison of the New Economy Project said, “Together these bills represent the first steps toward formation of a democratic financial institution that can ensure that New York City’s public money is used for the public good, to advance racial equity and a just recovery [from COVID-19].” The public banking legislation in the City Council and the State Senate is the present culmination of PBNYC’s long and ongoing struggle to establish a public bank for New York City.

In January, Andrew Yang entered the field of New York’s public banking movement. The entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate, best known for championing universal basic income, announced that he was running for mayor of New York, and that public banking was on his agenda. His platform includes a proposal for what he calls a “People’s Bank of New York.”

The People’s Bank would not, in fact, be a public chartered bank. Rather it would be a nonprofit corporation that would use loans from city government to support existing credit unions, community banks, minority depository institutions, and loan funds. Yang has stated, however, that the People’s Bank “will build the case for a true public chartered bank.” Yang’s core goal for the People’s Bank, and for public banking generally, is the reduction of underbanking. He also hopes to use the People’s Bank to distribute regular cash grants to the poorest New Yorkers and, like PBNYC, to financially assist small businesses.

Superficially, the respective public banking visions of PBNYC and Yang seem to overlap, but there are marked differences between the two. For one, PBNYC represents a grassroots movement for public banking, whereas Yang plans to enact his public banking agenda by getting elected and using the executive authority of the mayor’s office.

Jamie Tyberg of New York Communities for Change expressed the concern among some members of PBNYC towards public banking initiatives that are not connected to working people’s experiences at a grassroots level, saying: “If you’re not struggling to pay rent, if you’re not living paycheck by paycheck, then you’re not understanding how Wall Street has been our enemy and the main force of destabilizing our communities, and therefore you won’t be able to provide the best solutions.”

A second major difference between PBNYC and Yang is over financial technology, or “fintech,” companies. Fintech companies research and develop new technologies for financial institutions. A key aspect of Yang’s People’s Bank proposal is the establishment of an “Innovation Lab” wherein city government would partner with fintech companies to “bring the benefits of fintech products to more consumers.” But there is widespread skepticism toward fintech companies within PBNYC.

In testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services in January, representatives of the New Economy Project said that “companies identifying as ‘fintechs’ claim to ‘eliminate banking deserts’ or ‘empower communities’ redlined by banks, when in fact they are exploiting communities’ unmet needs and perpetuating inequality in our banking system.”

But the most significant difference between PBNYC and Yang is over divestment from Wall Street. Divestment forms the core of PBNYC’s mission, whereas it is entirely absent from Yang’s proposal. There is thus a concern over the usage of the language of public banking by figures like Yang who do not share a commitment to divestment.

“Divesting from Wall Street is non-negotiable for us,” said Tyberg, “and so if you don’t have that at the core of your plan then that means you are not speaking with us, that means you don’t know what the actual problems are, that means you don’t know who is causing these problems. Or maybe you do and you want to maintain [those problems]. Then you can say that, just don’t use our language.”

Although PBNYC does not take a position on political candidates, and Andrew Yang has made no statement as to PBNYC’s proposals, their differences over divestment may mark the beginning of a wider political struggle over the meaning of the term “public banking.”

There are nonetheless those who hope for unity in New York’s public banking movement. State Assemblymember Ron Kim of Queens has both co-sponsored the New York Public Banking Act and endorsed Andrew Yang for mayor. Kim is optimistic that PBNYC’s and Yang’s visions will converge in the long run. He supports the People’s Bank proposal because he thinks it would be “a step in the right direction” that could “help uplift the underbanked communities.” PBNYC itself made the statement that it is “encouraged that so many candidates are coming out in support of public banking.” Regardless of differences, the fact that more mainstream politicians are showing at least nominal support for public banking is seen as a promising development.

In New York, public banking has gone from a marginal idea to a relatively mainstream progressive idea. For proponents of public banking, that carries the strong benefit of increased support for the idea among both politicians and the public. But it also carries the difficulty of competing visions, and disagreements over just what is meant by the term “public banking.” Whether PBNYC’s and Yang’s visions can be reconciled is yet to be determined. What is ultimately at stake is the wellbeing of working New Yorkers. As PBNYC stated, “Fundamentally, any public bank proposal must be laser focused on advancing financial, housing, worker, and climate justice. We welcome all candidates to join this important fight."

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Sam Copeland is a freelance journalist.

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Note: this article has been changed to remove mention that NYCC endorsed Scott Stringer for mayor, given that the organization rescinded its endorsement.

New York Must Slam the Door on Wage Theft


3 navy yards ya

Construction workers (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


The construction industry workforce all across this state is keeping New York’s economic engine revving, building new homes, businesses, hospitality and retail venues in communities from Buffalo to the Bronx.

Yet for all their hard work, many are still being ripped off, or getting paid far less than what they were promised, and what they are legally entitled to be compensated.
Whether they are being knowingly underpaid by contractors for overtime hours or the contractor who hired them pays their wages but neglects to fund their taxes and benefits, wage theft comes in many forms and yes, it runs rampant.

It especially hurts those who are most vulnerable, people of color and new immigrants, as well as those who don’t have a union to stand behind and protect them from unscrupulous subcontractors and the general contractors willing to hire them just to cut costs.

Under a new bill (S2766/A3350) currently making its way through the New York State Senate labor committee, aggrieved workers would be able to turn to the general contractor on a job if the subcontractor commits wage theft.

General contractors would no longer be able to look the other way when shady characters try to make their profits on the backs of workers.

These bad actors often like to pay cash under the table, while pocketing millions of dollars a year in what should be workers’ wages and benefits. The pain they inflict goes beyond the workers; it also affects all New Yorkers given that important tax revenue is withheld from the State Department of Taxation.

The subcontractors who cheat their workers are also often the worst offenders when it comes to running dangerous job sites that threaten the safety of workers and the public.

Luckily, this bill aimed at cracking down on wage theft has passed the New York State Assembly and if the State Senate follows suit, the legislation will help to hold these contractors to account and protect workers, especially those in the construction sector, from being victimized.

There are some general contractors who are notorious for going with the lowest bid no matter what. Even when a bid comes in that is unrealistically low—at a price for which most legitimate contractors wouldn’t even be able to afford the equipment, let alone pay their workers fairly—they will accept it because, frankly, they don’t care what happens, as long as the job gets done and they make a profit.

When shameless subcontractors come in to take over a project and outbid their honest and reputable competitors, it’s the workers who are threatened most.

Their M.O.: Once their predatory behavior is uncovered, these subcontractors can often simply go out of business, change their company names, and hide behind other maneuvers that make them hard to track down. When their workers try to go after them and get justice, along with thousands of dollars in lost wages, they are met with endless hurdles and bureaucracy that make getting paid for the work you already provided like being dropped in the middle of a maze. 

Further, many of these workers, whether because of immigration status or a lack of resources, feel like they don’t have the time and knowledge to pursue justice for themselves.

General contractors are already similarly liable when there is a public construction project that is subject to a prevailing wage. In those cases, they are required to be bonded, and that personal indemnity discourages them from taking on any subcontractors who are going to be a risk to them by cheating workers or otherwise bending the rules.

This important legislation would also ensure that a general contractor on a private construction project is bound to make sure subcontractors are paying proper wages, incentivizing them to keep the bad actors out.

Different iterations of this bill have come and gone in previous legislative sessions but the political climate in New York right now is ripe for reform, without further foot-dragging.

At all levels of government, a renewed respect for labor and the value of an honest day’s work is in the air. New York needs to take the opportunity to protect workers by eliminating wage theft once and for all.

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Kevin Barry is director of the construction division of the United Service Workers Union (USWU-IUJAT).

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