Top Cuomo Aide: Payday Report is a “piece of garbage”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (New York Post)

Folks, 

Its appear that we have gotten New York Governor Andrew Cuomo all shook up.

Today, the Albany Times-Union followed up on our scoop that Cuomo was sitting on a bill that would grant unemployment benefits to 3,400 striking GM workers

Cuomo’s senior advisor and spokesman Rich Azzopardi told the Albany Times-Union that Payday Report is “a piece of garbage” that “is not worth the server storage it’s taking up.”

Here is an excerpt from the Albany Times-Union:

An article from the labor blog Payday Report accuses the governor of sitting on legislation passed this year, which would allow striking employees to collect unemployment benefits after one week. As the law currently stands, workers in New York have to be on strike for seven weeks before they can collect unemployment benefits.

“The premise of the story you’re trying to follow is flawed, intellectually dishonest, and should not be called journalism,” Cuomo’s senior advisor Rich Azzopardi told a Times Union reporter, in response to an inquiry about why the governor hasn’t signed the bill.


But Azzopardi acknowledged the central premise of Payday Report’s story is correct: the governor hasn’t signed the bill, he said, because there’s a backlog of 600 pieces of legislation awaiting his signature.


“The bill remains under review,” Azzopardi said. “There are more than 600 pieces of legislation still pending that counsel’s offices is still going through.


“We’re going through them,” Azzopardi added. “It’s our responsibility to make sure the bills do what they say they do.”


Azzopardi called Payday Report’s story “a piece of garbage” that “is not worth the server storage it’s taking up.” Asked for a response, the article’s author Mike Elk said he stands by the story.


“Good thing the server space is cheap,” Elk said.


You can read the rest of the article here at the Albany Times-Union.


It would appear that Payday is having a conversation if Cuomo’s top aide is willing to denounce us in these terms

Donate and help us to covering the GM strike. .

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter and alumni of the Guardian. In addition to filing nearly 2,000 stories from 46 states, Elk traveled with Lula from Sáo Bernando do Campos all the way to the Oval Office in the White House. Credited by the Washington Post for being the first reporter to track the strike wave systematically, Elk started Payday Report using his NLRB settlement from being illegally fired for union organizing in 2015. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and works frequently in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended college at PUC-Rio. He speaks both Portuguese and Pittsburghese fluently. His email is [email protected]

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