NEW YORK — Mayoral front-runner Andrew Cuomo rallied with several unions Wednesday to announce his plan to push for a $20 minimum wage by 2027 — citing his success as governor in raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2016.
But the former political director of one of the city’s largest unions remembers it differently — it was Cuomo who remained the biggest obstacle to boosting the minimum wage in the state, until the push for a $15 minimum went national in 2015 and pressured him to act.
“He only got to $15 after massive national campaign pressure and a commitment from SEIU to basically run a multimillion-dollar ad campaign” said Alison Hirsh, who was the political director and vice president for building service workers union 32BJ SEIU at the time…