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julie su
Mamdani Announces 'Click-to-Cancel' Rule to Combat Subscription Traps, Junk Fees
"If you can sign up with one click, you can cancel with one click," said New York City's democratic socialist mayor.
Jul 10, 2026
In a move proponents say will save constituents up to $162.5 million annually, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other New York City officials on Friday unveiled a "click-to-cancel" rule aimed at ensuring people can end online subscriptions as easily as they start them.
Days after entering office in January, Mamdani signed a pair of executive orders, "Combating Hidden Junk Fees" and "Fighting Subscription Tricks and Traps"—his 9th and 10th mayoral edicts—to protect consumers and make it easier "for New Yorkers to know the real price of what they are buying and to stop paying for the services they no longer want."
Following up on the orders, Mamdani and New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine proposed a rule "requiring transparent, all-in pricing that bans hidden junk fees, alongside a final 'click to cancel' rule that guarantees consumers can cancel subscriptions as easily as they sign up for them."
The landmark proposal is part of Mamdani's affordability agenda, which includes the rent freeze and universal childcare programs he's partially enacted, as well as the free city buses, municipal grocery stores, affordable housing expansion, and redistributive taxation his administration is pursuing.
“For years, companies have built their business model around making it harder for working people to hold onto their money,” Mamdani said during a Friday press conference at Asser Levy Recreational Center in Manhattan's Kips Bay neighborhood. “Whether it’s hidden fees that suddenly appear at checkout or subscriptions that take one click to sign up for and a dozen steps to cancel, the result is the same: Working people pay more while corporations profit. That ends now. If you can sign up with one click, you can cancel with one click.”
Levine said that “these two rules will ensure that the price you see is the price you pay—no hidden charges, no endless subscription services, and no advantages for businesses that cheat. Requiring companies to compete on price will lower costs for all New Yorkers and level the playing field for honest businesses.”
Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su spoke at the press conference, saying, “Every dollar a family loses to a hidden fee or a subscription they couldn’t cancel is a dollar stolen from them, a dollar that could have gone toward rent, groceries, childcare, or anything else."
"And just as important, the hours spent trying to cancel a subscription or membership you no longer want is stolen time," the former acting US labor secretary added. “That’s what affordability means in practice—closing the small holes that drain people’s paychecks and their time month after month. These rules put New Yorkers back in control.”
Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan—who implemented a similar rule while serving in the role during the Biden administration before it was killed after President Donald Trump returned to office—also spoke Friday, arguing that “nobody should be trapped in subscriptions they can’t escape or stuck paying junk fees they can’t avoid."
“These predatory tactics cheat people out of billions of dollars each year," she added. "With today’s rules, Commissioner Levine and DCWP are cracking down on corporate ripoffs, protecting families and honest businesses alike. The Mamdani administration’s work to tackle the affordability crisis and promote economic fairness continues to set a new standard nationwide, modeling effective governance and a relentless focus on using all of the city’s levers to improve life for New Yorkers.”
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Mamdani Taps 'Unafraid and Unbought' Julie Su as First NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City," said one local labor leader.
Dec 19, 2025
In a move cheered by advocates for the working class, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Friday that former acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su will serve as the city's first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice.
"Welcome to a new era, Julie Su," Mamdani, a Democrat, said in a social media post announcing the appointment. "As former US secretary of labor, Julie played a central role in fighting for workers, ensuring a just day's pay for a hard day's work, and saving the pensions of more than a million union workers and retirees."
Speaking at a Friday press conference in Staten Island with Mamdani and Deputy Mayor for Housing nominee Leila Bozorg, Su said: "In the richest city in the richest country in the world, no one should be treated as disposable. Dignity on the job is not a privilege but a right, justice is not abstract but it is felt in a paycheck you can live on, a schedule that you can build a life around, a workplace where your voice matters, and a city that has your back.”
Su, who had previously served as California labor secretary and deputy US labor secretary, was nominated by former President Joe Biden to permanently lead the Department of Labor. However, Republicans and some right-wing Democrats in the US Senate blocked her appointment, so Biden installed her in an acting capacity, in which she served from March 2023 until the end of the Democrat's administration in January.
During her tenure, Su championed gig workers; fought to preserve pensions for retirees; pushed for workplace protections from Covid-19 and environmental harms; and helped negotiate labor agreements for healthcare professionals, flight attendants, and others.
Su will now work with Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as he seeks to deliver on his campaign promises of free public childcare and municipal buses, a freeze on rent-stabilized housing, and city-owned grocery stores to residents of the nation's largest city.
"What a thrilling day for the working class of New York City to have the first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice to ensure that our issues are front [and] center at every level of city government," New York Taxi Workers Alliance executive director Bhairavi Desai said in a statement.
"With the appointment of the esteemed Julie Su—who is unafraid and unbought by corporate interests—Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is cementing the highest, uncompromised, and effective standards for a better life for New Yorkers abandoned and betrayed in decades past," Desai added.
The NYC Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO said on Bluesky: "Big news! Julie Su as deputy mayor for economic justice brings deep experience enforcing labor law, fighting wage theft, and standing up for working families."
"She’s known and respected across the labor movement, including here in NYC," the council added. "Looking forward to working with a proven champion for workers at City Hall!"
Service Employees International Union international president April Verrett said on X that Su "has spent her career standing with workers and holding powerful interests to account."
"Bringing her into City Hall says New York is done talking and ready to throw down for the people who keep this city moving," she added.
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'Not Us—They Are!' Union Leader Rejects Fox News Spin on Port Strikes
"People never gave a shit about us until now, when they finally realized that the chain is being broke now."
Oct 02, 2024
Amid concerns over fallout from the dockworker strike at ports up and down the East Coast, the head of the International Longshoremen's Association stressed in a Fox News appearance Tuesday that it's greedy companies, not 45,000 striking workers, who are to blame for any economic impacts that may follow from the labor dispute.
"They don't care," ILA president Harold Daggett said of shipping companies. "It's not fair. And if we don't put our foot down now, they would like to run over us, and we're not gonna allow that."
The Fox reporter then said, "You are gonna grind the economy to a halt here on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast."
Daggett fired back: "Not us—they are! Don't spin it now because you're Fox News... They have the capital to settle this thing."
Longshoreman President Harold Daggett praises Secretary of Labor Julie Su, and attacks the corporations whose greed has seen them make $400 billion in profit by jacking up prices since the start of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/IO2hizqpOX
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) October 1, 2024
Reuters reported Wednesday that "the strike, the ILA's first major stoppage since 1977, is worrying businesses that rely on ocean shipping to export their wares or secure crucial imports. It affects 36 ports—including New York, Baltimore, and Houston—that handle a range of containerized goods ranging from bananas to clothing to cars."
As the Fox reporter emphasized the impacts of the strike, Daggett said, "Now you start to realize who the longshoremen are, right?"
"People never gave a shit about us until now, when they finally realized that the chain is being broke now," he continued. "Cars won't come in. Food won't come in. Clothing won't come in. You know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world!"
"And it's time for them, and time for Washington, to put so much pressure on them to take care of us," he added. "Because we took care of them, and we're here 135 years and brought them where they are today and they don't want to share!"
The ILA members walked off the job just after midnight on Tuesday, following the collapse of negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The union is pushing for annual raises and protections from automation in the six-year contract.
Democratic President Joe Biden has power to break the strike—thanks to the anti-union law known as the Taft-Hartley Act—but has said he doesn't plan to do so. The ILA has welcomed the involvement of Biden's acting secretary of labor, Julie Su, whom Daggett called "terrific."
"We took care of them... and brought them where they are today and they don't want to share!"
In a Wednesday statement, the union leader said that his members "are grateful for the wisdom, courage, and leadership" of Su.
"Our ILA rank-and-file members will continue to strike for fair wages and their share of the foreign ocean carriers record billion-dollar profits and we are grateful to have the support of the U.S. Labor Department," Daggett declared.
His comments came in response to Su saying Tuesday that "over the last week and more, I have spent hours on the phone and in meetings with the parties urging them to find a way to reach a fair contract. This country's port workers put their health and safety on the line to keep working through the pandemic so we could get the goods we needed as Covid raged and these workers will help communities recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene."
"As these companies make billions and their CEOs bring in millions of dollars in compensation per year, they have refused to put an offer on the table that reflects workers' sacrifice and contributions to their employer's profits," she added. "The American economy has defied all expectations thanks to the Biden-Harris administration's leadership. There is room for both companies and their workers to prosper. The parties need to get back to the negotiating table, and that must begin with these giant shipping magnates acknowledging that if they can make record profits, their workers should share in that economic success."
Biden—who blocked a rail strike in 2022 but then last year became the first sitting president to walk a picket line—put out a similar statement in support of longshoremen on Tuesday, saying on social media that "it's time those ocean carriers offered a strong and fair contract that reflects ILA workers’ contribution to our economy and to their record profits."
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the November election, piled on with a Wedneday campaign statement highlighting that "this strike is about fairness. Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown. The longshoremen, who play a vital role transporting essential goods across America, deserve a fair share of these record profits."
Harris pointed out that her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, "wants to pull us back to a time before workers had the freedom to organize," noting that "as president, he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers, he appointed union-busters to the [National Labor Relations Board]—and just recently, he said striking workers should be fired."
"Donald Trump makes empty promise after empty promise to American workers, but never delivers. He thinks our economy should only work for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who actually build them," she added. "As president, I will have workers' backs and finally pass the [Protecting the Right to Organize] Act. And I will fight for an opportunity economy—where every person has the chance not just to get by but to get ahead."
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