Crains New York - February 18, 2013 - (Page 6)

Labor strife in mayor’s race BY CHRIS BRAGG City labor unions have agreed to delay endorsements until unusually late in this year’s mayoral election, potentially shifting the dynamics of the Democratic primary contest. The move is intended to avoid having union endorsements splintered among several candidates—a goal that is already proving elusive. The executive board of the Central Labor Council, an umbrella group of local unions, voted nearly unanimously last month for a resolution stating that its members would not make endorsements in the Democratic mayoral primary until May, according to labor sources who attended the meeting. by Andrew J. Hawkins main rivals—Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller Bill Thompson and Comptroller John Liu—cannot now roll out their own early endorsements to show they are gathering strength, which might blunt Ms. Quinn’s advantage in the polls. It’s also possible that the two unions’ defiance of the resolution could lead others to break the deal and endorse one of the speaker’s rivals. Pressure on de Blasio “If they still hold to May, then Quinn has two and a half months to gain steam. If this breaks the deal, it’s game on,” said one operative. The three unions that have endorsed are members of the Working Families Party. Ms. Quinn has now lined up about 15% of the party’s weighted endorsement vote. She needs 60% to land its coveted endorsement and ballot line this year. WFP support is key to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign, however, and the public advocate needs backing from a high percentage of the WFP’s uncommitted member unions and organizations in order to get the powerful party’s nod. That could increase pressure on pro-de Blasio unions to announce their support soon. Ⅲ ‘If this breaks the deal, it’s game on,’ an insider said Speeches signal City Hall shift T here were two State of the City speeches last week, one by a mayor looking to preserve his legacy, another by a potential successor trying to fashion her own. The addresses bore few similarities, other than the obligatory references to New York’s being “great.” Mayor Michael Bloomberg (above) boasted of his administration’s high points over the past 11 years—he literally hung them from the rafters of the Barclays Center—while City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, at home in the council chambers, emphasized her efforts to help average New Yorkers. buck ennis Three endorse early But there have already been three endorsements in the race. Grocerystore workers’ union UFCW Local 1500 endorsed City Council Speaker Christine Quinn before the CLC passed its resolution, while the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and the Mason Tenders District Council endorsed Ms. Quinn in defiance of the measure, sparking predictions that others would follow. There are some 35 members of the CLC board, including all of the city’s biggest labor players, such as the United Federation of Teachers, District Council 37, building service workers’ union 32BJ and health care workers’ union 1199 SEIU. If the agreement is kept, they will stay on the sidelines for the next two and a half months. The Democratic primary is currently scheduled for September. The strategy behind the resolution is to stop individual unions from making endorsements until the CLC does, maximizing the umbrella group’s impact and potentially unifying labor’s overall strategy in the mayor’s race, rather than letting unions go in different directions early in the campaign. CLC President Vincent Alvarez, who was elected in June 2011, has pushed for more unity from organized labor in the city. “It’s an effort by labor to be more collaborative and have a more coherent process,” said one labor source. “The mayor’s race is full of candidates with deep ties to labor, and the effort is to make sure [the CLC endorsement decision] is as democratic as possible.” One political operative speculated that a delay in endorsements could help Ms. Quinn, because her nyc mayor’s office Unions aim to unite behind a single candidate, but some jump the gun THE INSIDER The mayor mentioned the middle class just once in his remarks; the speaker did so 44 times. He took the podium as Brooklyn Nets dancers gyrated; she was introduced by her 86-year-old father, a former union electrical worker from Queens. Mr. Bloomberg, who alluded several times to his lack of confidence in how the city will be run after he leaves office, unveiled no grand schemes, instead launching proposals that he could bring back to port before his term ends Dec. 31. He said he would push to ban plastic-foam food packaging from Christine Quinn stores and restaurants, ease the consequences of low-level marijuana arrests, increase the city’s wireless Internet connectivity,boost tourism, double recycling, open more charter schools and complete long-gestating infrastructure projects. He rejected calls to delay a rezoning of the area around Grand Central Terminal, saying it could be sabotaged by politics after he departs. He indicated that plans to revamp the South Street Seaport, erect a soccer stadium in Queens and create a waterfront park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, would get done this year. At times defiant and scolding, the mayor charged that critics of stop-and-frisk policing would not sacrifice their own lives to scale it back and therefore should not con- demn others to death by doing so. Alluding to the teachers’union and parent activists, he accused those who object to letting charter schools share other public schools’ space of trying to “lock out” and “deny resources” to children. In contrast, Ms. Quinn was genial and autobiographical, recollecting her grandfather’s emigration here from Ireland. While the mayor tripped over numerous words, even flubbing several attempts to pronounce Coney Island’s Steeplechase Plaza (he ultimately settled on “Staplechase”), the council leader, whose thundering laugh could scare off a flock of birds, was both smooth and dynamic. She moderated the volume and shrillness that have characterized her public speaking in the past. The fulcrum of her address, two days before the mayor’s, was income equality, a running theme in the Democratic primary in which early polling has marked her as the front-runner. But rather than propose new taxes on the wealthy, as two of her Democratic rivals did, Ms.Quinn,who is courting real estate and other business support,instead called for new borrowing and budget reallocations. “We face an affordability crisis in our city, and it cuts right at the fabric of New York,” she said. By building middle-class housing and spending more to help cashstrapped families, the government can bring wealth distribution more into balance, she added. Whether she will get a chance to implement that vision and dispel the mayor’s fears of post-Bloomberg New York will be decided in the next eight months. Ⅲ Crain’s Insider, our award-winning politics newsletter, is now a blog. Read it every day at www.crainsnewyork.com/insider 6 | Crain’s New York Business | February 18, 2013 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/section/events_calendars/submit http://www.crainsnewyork.com/insider

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Crains New York - February 18, 2013