De La Rosa questions Milstein on Intro 161 and workforce impacts

Okay.

I'm going to pass it over to Chair De La Rosa.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And just continuing on on that same question, you all testified that my legislation, my Bill 161, basically does the same thing as Local Law 25.

One, we look forward to seeing the report.

Local Law 25, to my knowledge, requires a one-time report that's going to come out of that study.

161 is more comprehensive and is requiring that report to be updated yearly.

And as this technology is evolving, in my opinion, hence why I put the bill forward, you know, more

consistent reporting is going to be needed, especially as we begin to see how the workforce is impacted.

Before I was a technology chair, I was the labor chair.

We have a wonderful labor chair in the House, and I'm grateful to her leadership.

But this is an issue that impacts not only organized labor, but I also see it as an issue where we're leading.

The nation really and how the workforce will react to this evolving technology.

And so is there anything that you can share with us right now on where the workforce is and what those impacts will look like?

I know you're working on the study, but is there anything you can give us forthcoming?

Thank you for the question, Council Member.

So the initial stages of the report are in part about determining how we even define impact.

It's a pretty broad term and could mean many different things.

So we're in the phase of determining that now so that we're able to produce a report that's really meaningful for city workers.

We certainly support the intent of your bill.

be interested in further conversation about the annual nature of the reporting.

I appreciate that.

Some of the information that we're looking for, for example, is, I think, an important question.

How many funded agency positions, for example, will be eliminated due to the use of these tools?

The agency vacancies has been something that this council has really been looking at, especially as we look at civil service reform across the board and bringing people into municipal service.

So, you know, we do want to understand sort of displacement and what that looks like for the workforce.

We want to also understand reduction of hours over time, which this council has not been shy about questioning the administrations, past administrations and present administrations about.

We also want to know about subcontractors, right?

There's a ton of city contracts that are in play right now and we want to know what the impacts are.

So I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all and building on what we will see from the report of Local Law 25.