MAKE ‘EM PAY: MAKE NYC’S BIGGEST LAWBREAKING COMPANIES PAY WHAT THEY OWE!
NYC’s biggest violators are large lawbreaking corporations that owe billions. New Yorkers are ready to collect.
NYC is owed at least $1.5 billion from landlords and corporations whose lawbreaking endangers workers and tenants. Both sides of City Hall, City agencies, and the Law Department must make it a priority to strengthen enforcement, collect overdue penalties, and curb corporate greed making the city unsafe and unaffordable.
To finally hold repeat corporate offenders accountable and collect more city revenue, New York City must expand the workforce responsible for identifying violations, adjudicating cases, and collecting what’s owed.
- Increase enforcement staff at the city agencies to issue more violations to big law-breaking corporations.
- Double the budget of and add an additional 400 enforcement staff including inspectors and lawyers at the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) ($135M).
- Increase enforcement staff at the Department of Buildings (DOB), City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) ($25M), and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) ($25M) to collect $800M from delinquent landlords. Modernize systems at HPD ($25M).
- Increase adjudication staff at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) to appropriately accommodate increased enforcement activity.
- Hire 50 additional auditors at the Department of Finance (DOF) to increase collection ($5M).
- Increase corporate litigation staff and add 200 attorneys at the Law Department ($38M).
NYC must ensure that corporations and big landlord companies can’t endlessly violate the law without repercussions. Imposing these consequences has the ability of bringing in hundreds of millions if not billions more in penalties.
- Create two new units in the Law Department: Collections & Revenue Enforcement; Corporate Litigation.
- Padlock or suspend operations for big businesses with major unpaid penalties.
- Fine owners who block building inspections and fail to give access for building inspections.
- Create or strengthen licensing and operating requirements for large companies and big landlords.
- Aggregate violations across commonly owned LLCs by cross-checking between agencies.
- Bar companies with outstanding penalties from doing business or receiving subsidies from the City.
- Increase monetary penalties for big landlords and large companies who break the law.
- Impose new penalties for health and quality-of-life violations, like failed facade inspections and repairs.
- Make major HPD/DOB penalties and emergency clean-up charges lienable via property tax bills.
- Target enforcement at worst offenders with repeat and “pattern and practice” violations and large penalties.
NYC has many strong laws on the books that, if enforced, would generate significant revenue while improving safety for workers and tenants. The City should prioritize laws that (1) protect health and safety, (2) generate substantial revenue through large unpaid penalties, (3) target corporate actors with high violation volumes, and (4) address areas where enforcement has historically been weak or uneven
NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams
Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams
Council Member Carmen De La Rosa
Council Member Chris Marte
Council Member Harvey Epstein
Council Member Julie Won
Council Member Pierina Sanchez
Council Member Shahana Hanif
Council Member Tiffany Cabán
Council Member Julie Won
Council Member Shirley Aldebol
Council Member Sandy Nurse
Council Member Chi Ossé
Council Member Justin Sanchez
ALIGN: Alliance for a Greater New York
Alliance for Quality Education (AQE)
Brandworkers
Carroll Gardens Association (CGA)
Center for Anti-Violence Education
Central Queens Independent Democrats
Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC)
Coalition for Asian American Children and Families
Dignity in Schools Campaign of New York
DRUM – Desis Rising Up and Moving
FPWA
Freedom Agenda
Housing Conservation Coordinators
Housing Rights Initiative
Housing Works
Indivisible Brooklyn
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)
Literacy Assistance Center
Met Council on Housing
Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE-UFT)
New Settlement: Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA)
New Settlement: Parent Action Committee (PAC)
New York City Coalition For Domestic Work
New York Communities for Change (NYCC)
New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools (RJPS)
North Star Fund
NYC Democratic Socialists of America (NYC DSA)
NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYC NOWC)
NYC Safe Energy Campaign
Parents Supporting Parents NY
Queer Nightlife Community Center (QNCC)
Staten Island Inter-Religious Leadership
TakeRoot Justice
The Ali Forney Center
The Circle Keepers
The New York City Anti-Violence Project
The Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY)
Transportation Alternatives
Western Queens Community Land Trust
Workers Justice Project
Young Invincibles
Community Voices Heard
Citizen Action of New York
What Is the Make ‘Em Pay Campaign?
Make ‘Em Pay is the People’s Plan’s 2026 budget campaign that calls on New York City to collect the 1.5 billion of unpaid corporate penalties that are still left on the table. Recovering these funds could help close the city’s budget gap and protect essential services. Here is our campaign 1-pager. Green indicates this is a budget ask for this year (June) and the purple items are legislative asks that would extend post budget season.
Why does this campaign matter right now?
New York City faces a $5.4 billion budget gap – which, if not closed, could cause essential services to be cut. Meanwhile, big corporations have avoided paying millions in penalties for violations that harm tenants and workers. Collecting these unpaid fines could generate $1.5 billion in revenue (collected over multiple fiscal years), while costing only about $250 million in enforcement staffing.
How much revenue will this bring in? Is this one time revenue or recurring?
$1.5B is the potential but likely not in one fiscal year. That figure reflects unrealized revenue across agencies. We’re not assuming 100% collection overnight. Even partial improvements generate meaningful recurring revenue. Our rough estimate is between $250M-$500M per fiscal year for a few fiscal years depending on how aggressive the City is in enforcement, policy changes, and consequences. That number goes up with policy changes esp. increasing penalties. This internal memo has some more information about our math. Note: We’re basing our analysis on publicly available data released through Department of Finance reports and the Independent Budget Office. We aim to get more data from DCWP, HPD, and ECB agencies and open data.
Does the $1.5B collection number require new laws?
No. The campaign calls on NYC to enforce the existing laws, such as Local Law 97, that are already on the books and protect tenants, workers, and public safety. The real issue is lack of enforcement and accountability, not lack of rules. Our policy proposal in purple has the potential of bringing in more collections especially if civil penalties are increased and loopholes are closed.
Would this target smaller landlords and mom & pop businesses?
Our intention is to focus on repeat, large-scale violators not small landlords or individuals, which is why we chose to orient our campaign around agencies that tend to enforce laws on entities, not individuals. This campaign is geared towards the enforcement of large corporate lawbreakers such as A&E Real Estate, Doordash, Chipotle, and Amazon. Our policy framework in purple is also geared towards these larger entities and will ensure that it is the larger corporate bad actors, not the little guys, who get the brunt of the enforcement. Many of these businesses are already in the purview of the city and appear on both the Comptroller’s “Worst Employers” Dashboard and the Public Advocate’s “Worst Landlords” list.
Is this legally feasible for the City?
This is about enforcement, not new taxes or powers not within the city’s purview. Adopting the Make ‘Em Pay proposal is totally within city authority. It’s scaling up what we already do and doing it better.
Who supports the campaign?
Our steering committee is listed [here], and dozens of community, labor, and grassroots organizations have signed on to Make ‘Em Pay (see our 1-pager). There is also clear alignment with city leadership. The Mayor and Speaker have emphasized the need for revenue, efficiency, and corporate accountability. Make ‘Em Pay advances those goals by focusing on enforcement-based revenue from corporate lawbreakers and negligent landlords — not working-class New Yorkers — and provides a unifying framework for electeds and stakeholders to act.