Mamdani’s Driver Test: Will He Choose Workers or Waymo?
Within months of taking office, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will face a defining decision that will reveal whether his campaign promises to workers were genuine or merely rhetorical. Waymo, Google’s autonomous vehicle company, has been testing eight self-driving Jaguar I-PACE vehicles across Manhattan and northern Brooklyn since summer 2025. The company’s testing permit, currently extended through March 31, 2026, will require approval from Mamdani’s administration to continue beyond that date. The decision carries enormous implications for the city’s 100,000-plus licensed taxi and for-hire vehicle drivers—the very workers Mamdani campaigned alongside during a highly publicized hunger strike demanding medallion debt relief.
This moment will test whether Mamdani represents a genuine break from the pro-corporate, tech-friendly governance of the Eric Adams administration, or whether he will ultimately defer to the innovation narrative and capital interests that have consistently prioritized technological advancement over worker protection in New York City. The stakes are not abstract: they involve thousands of workers’ livelihoods, the survival of a industry that has provided a living for immigrant communities for generations, and the trajectory of labor politics in a city increasingly shaped by corporate tech expansion.
Waymo’s Testing and the Path to Full Commercialization
Waymo began testing autonomous vehicles in New York City with what appears to be modest scope: eight vehicles with trained safety specialists behind the wheel, operating in constrained geographic areas. This testing phase is not accidental positioning—it represents a deliberate strategy to establish regulatory legitimacy and normalize autonomous vehicle presence before seeking full commercialization. The company has already deployed approximately 1,000 fully autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, where Waymo reportedly represents at least a fifth of the ride-share market since launching in 2023, according to the Economist.
The path to expanded operations in New York is increasingly clear. Assembly Member Brian Cunningham, whose father was a cab driver, has sponsored state legislation that would remove the requirement that a human driver be present for autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads, contingent on insurance and licensing requirements being met. State Senator Jeremy Cooney co-sponsors the legislation, framing autonomous vehicles as inevitable technological progress that New York must embrace to avoid falling behind other jurisdictions.
Critically, the proposed state legislation includes a carveout allowing New York City to craft its own regulations for autonomous vehicles. This means that even if state law removes the human driver requirement, Mamdani’s administration could theoretically establish stricter standards. The decision to extend Waymo’s testing permit through March 2026 was made by the Eric Adams administration’s Department of Transportation—a pro-development agency that has consistently prioritized corporate interests over community concerns. What Mamdani does after March will reveal his actual policy priorities.
The Taxi Worker Perspective and Job Loss Concerns
The taxi workers who organized Mamdani’s campaign are unambiguous about autonomous vehicles: they pose an existential threat to the industry and must be stopped. Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, explicitly stated she wants a moratorium placed on further testing and on approving self-driving cars to operate as taxis. The Transport Workers Union has similarly opposed autonomous vehicle deployment. These are not marginal voices—they represent workers who mobilized for Mamdani’s election and constitute a significant portion of his political base.
The threat is real and quantifiable. New York City currently has over 100,000 licensed TLC drivers. If Waymo’s San Francisco model represents even partial market capture in New York, the employment consequences would be catastrophic for tens of thousands of workers, the vast majority of whom are immigrants from South Asian, Middle Eastern, and African backgrounds. These are workers with median incomes around $35,000 annually—living standards barely above poverty for a city with exorbitant housing costs. Autonomous vehicles would not create equivalent replacement employment; they would simply eliminate jobs.
Desai indicated she has not yet spoken with Mamdani about autonomous vehicles but hopes to raise the issue through the incoming administration’s Worker Justice transition committee. This is the critical moment. If Mamdani genuinely represents worker interests, this issue should rank among his administration’s top priorities, not an item for future consideration. The decision to extend Waymo’s testing permit should be reversed, and a moratorium should be established pending comprehensive analysis of labor market impacts.
The “Innovation” Narrative and Corporate Power
Waymo’s pitch relies heavily on a specific narrative: autonomous vehicles will make transportation safer and more accessible, benefiting all New Yorkers. The company cites data showing 91% fewer crashes resulting in serious injuries compared to human drivers in cities where Waymo operates. This framing positions opposition to autonomous vehicles as standing against safety and progress—a rhetorical move designed to make worker protection appear selfish and backward-looking.
This narrative obscures the actual power dynamics at play. Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet, one of the world’s most profitable corporations with resources dwarfing those available to public sector regulators or worker advocates. The company has strategically engaged in community relations—including a collaboration with Bronx Community College ostensibly around job training for the autonomous vehicle industry—as a public relations strategy to preempt organized opposition. Rather than fighting regulators directly, as Uber and Lyft did a decade ago, Waymo is attempting to appear as a collaborative partner while systematically positioning itself for market dominance.
Council Member Justin Brannan articulated the deeper concern: “I think it’s a larger conversation around the existential threat to our economy and our workforce, which is artificial intelligence and unchecked automation of human jobs. It’s pretty interesting that now companies like Waymo have shifted from ‘Isn’t this a cool, future tech?’ to ‘Humans are the problem.’ It’s a very strategic narrative to normalize replacing human labor.” Brannan reintroduced legislation requiring the Taxi and Limousine Commission to license and regulate autonomous vehicles—a crucial regulatory safeguard that must be strengthened, not weakened.
Regulatory Lessons From Uber and Lyft
New York City’s experience with Uber and Lyft provides essential context. When those companies entered the market in the mid-2010s, they operated largely unregulated, quickly capturing market share and fundamentally destabilizing the taxi industry. The Taxi and Limousine Commission was initially absent from these decisions, allowing corporate platforms to reshape transportation without meaningful oversight or protection for existing workers.
The result has been catastrophic for many taxi workers. Medallion values collapsed, medallion owners lost retirement savings, and driver earnings declined dramatically as Uber and Lyft flooded the market with supply. Suicide rates among taxi drivers increased significantly during this period, a documented public health consequence of unchecked platform expansion.
New York City TLC Commissioner David Do is explicit about the lessons: “Whatever and however Waymos come into our city, we need to have a hyper focus on driver protection and not have an unregulated scheme like 10 years ago when Uber and Lyft came into our city.” This requires not merely regulatory oversight but affirmative worker protection through fare standards, driver income guarantees, or other mechanisms ensuring that autonomous vehicle expansion does not destroy workers’ ability to earn a living.
The Question of Inevitability
Proponents of autonomous vehicles frequently invoke inevitability—the notion that this technology is coming regardless of regulatory decisions, so New York might as well shape it. This framing obscures political choice. Technology deployment is never inevitable; it is always the product of regulatory decisions. Federal, state, and local government actively decide which technologies to permit, under what conditions, and with what protections for affected workers.
New York could decide that autonomous vehicles should not operate in the city at all. Alternatively, it could establish conditions so restrictive—requiring substantial transit contributions, worker transition assistance, living wage guarantees for drivers, or caps on total autonomous vehicle numbers—that deployment becomes economically unviable. These are political choices available to elected officials accountable to voters and workers.
The Test of Mamdani’s Commitment to Workers
The decision about Waymo’s permit extension in March 2026 will reveal fundamental truths about Mamdani’s administration. If he extends the permit without major restrictions, he will have chosen corporate interests over the workers who elected him. If he implements a moratorium pending comprehensive labor impact analysis and establishes strict worker protections as preconditions for any autonomous vehicle expansion, he will have demonstrated that his campaign rhetoric about prioritizing working people was genuine.
This decision will also establish precedent for how his administration handles subsequent conflicts between technological innovation and worker protection. If Waymo’s expansion is permitted to proceed, it will signal to other corporations that technology deployment can move forward with minimal friction. If it is restricted, it will demonstrate that Mamdani’s administration takes worker interests seriously.
Taxi workers organized for Mamdani’s election because they believed he represented a different politics—one that prioritizes working people’s survival over corporate expansion. They are now watching to see if that belief was justified. The decision about Waymo will answer that question definitively.
