Last week, I told 13,000 supporters of Zohran Mamdani at Forest Hills Stadium the story of how museum workers in my union fought back against an attempt at layoffs. Then, I asked the artists and art workers attending the rally to cheer. The roars rippling through the crowd confirmed what I had suspected: This campaign is one of the most significant political gatherings of artists and creatives of our time. With sustained organization, it can be a blueprint. The first step is electing Zohran Mamdani. The next is building a movement for an affordable New York. This movement has already begun with 90,000 campaign volunteers and the support of unions like District Council 37, which represents 150,000 workers in the city and in museums, including myself. It continues when we recognize work as work, and most art workers as part of the working class — anyone who is just one medical bill away from bankruptcy. With organization, including unions, we can build the power to impact governance. To do that, we need to be able to pay rent and put food on the table. AffordabilityIn 2017, a grassroots group of arts leaders called for a rent freeze as a part of the People’s Cultural Plan. Artist Jenny Dubnau, one of the plan’s architects, told Hyperallergic at the time that “artists, cultural workers, and cultural access in the city are in a huge crisis.” If this was a crisis eight years ago, it’s a five-alarm affordability fire now. A 2022 study commissioned by Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) found that 85% of artists across the state report a household income of less than $50,000, well below the state’s living wage standard. Mamdani’s focus on affordability for all means affordability for artists, answering the call to action proposed by the People’s Cultural Plan.Union leaders, including June Lei (second from right), at the New York is Not For Sale rally on Oct 26 in Forest Hills, Queens (photo Max Peterson, courtesy June Lei)Our city’s arts and culture sector is a $110 billion industry. This makes perfect sense given that we live in the richest city in the world and work in an industry forged by the largest fortunes that have ever existed. What does not make sense is that, in this same city of exorbitant wealth, 63% of artists report being in unmanageable debt, according to CRNY. Affordability cannot fix this dissonance, but immediate material improvements are a lifeline for artists and art workers. Mamdani’s policies of dignity for all resonate with workers who often go unpaid or underpaid for love of our craft. Easing financial burdens through a rent freeze, subsidized transportation, and childcare will make our city an easier place to live and all of our jobs better, in the arts or otherwise.Philanthropy Is BrokenAnyone who has ever completed a grant application can attest that the philanthropic system is broken. Our fundraising colleagues in the arts work tirelessly to beg for money that is no longer accessible due to trends in the volatile financial market. As a ripple effect, institutional leadership and boards that are out of touch with the scope and demands of art workers’ jobs will cut hours for educators or safety measures for art handlers. They will cut and slash until the work is unbearable, often to protect their own salaries, which are often many times higher than those of their employees, or the interests of their dwindling funders. They will hire a technocrat who can teach you what a KPI is but can’t solve what is ultimately a structural issue — that museums and organizations are underfunded because the wealthy are not taxed enough to ensure our sector’s sustainability. Museums cannot function as a public good when their budgets serve to undermine their missions. When the city locks in a nearly $15 million contract across five years for a Manhattan heliport, but only guarantees small arts organizations up to $300,000 over three years, this is a political choice. When the city expends $955 million in overtime for police officers in one year, it makes a political decision against supporting the equivalent of, say, three Museums of Modern Art, 59 Studio Museums in Harlem, or 309 Creative Times (calculated based on their estimated operation budgets). The scale of our public resources is staggering. Imagine the work we could do in the arts if we weren’t caught up with the rejection therapy of asking for money over and over again. Brooklyn Museum workers meet with Zohran Mamdani in March 2025 while facing attempted layoffs. (photo courtesy June Lei)Creative Labor OrganizingThe most salient way to strengthen democracy is through implementing it on a small scale, including in workplaces. This means employers voluntarily recognizing their workers’ unions. One could argue that our current political moment is a result of a century of dwindling labor power and anti-worker laws, but it is our progressive organizations and institutions that have done the dirty work. When they shell out, for instance, a million dollars to a consultant who instructs them to lay off their staff to save a million dollars and another million to an anti-union lawyer instead of just paying their workers more, they undercut their own missions. After the 2024 presidential election, historian Gabriel Winant wrote, “Liberal corporations, the press, the universities — institutions that deplore Trump in name — have shifted in recent years toward carrying out elements of his program in miniature, seemingly uncoerced.” If we bust democratic governance in our own workplaces, why should we expect democratic governance at any scale, from anyone else? If we strip people of their dignity at work, why should we expect their political empowerment in any other arena?A pro-union mayor who sits down with laid-off workers, goes on hunger strike with taxi drivers, shows up to every picket line, consistently demonstrates an understanding of the human cost of work — that is the ally we need in City Hall. Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for mayor has already gathered a coalition of artists, creatives, and art workers, who together can mobilize people power to build back our democracy and win the whole future ahead of us. We are ready to get to work.