NEW YORK—With a month to go before Election Day in November, New York City’s politically influential unions appear to differ on whether to endorse the Democratic front-runner, Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo running as an independent, or stay neutral.
The New York mayoral race is nationally important and nationally watched. Mamdani has made no secret of his progressive, anti-MAGA views. Far-right GOP President Donald Trump, who hates his hometown’s progressive orientation, has made no secret of his support for Cuomo.
The winner of the race to succeed outgoing and scandal-ridden Mayor Eric Adams would have an automatic national platform as the person running the nation’s largest city.
Mamdani, a state legislator, would be the city’s youngest mayor in decades and its first Muslim-American mayor. He champions the working class with ideas such as free bus service, experimental city-run grocery stores, and building more units of affordable housing, and promises to tackle inflation.
Cuomo, a former governor forced from office by scandals involving underreporting of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and also sexual liaisons—which he denies—has the backing of outside big money, including from Republican donors.
In a late development, Cuomo now warns that if Mamdani wins, Trump will send troops in to take over New York. For his part, Trump repeatedly calls Mamdani “a Communist” and predicts a Mamdani win “will be a gift to the Republican Party.”
Trump’s troops have taken over downtown Los Angeles, plus central Washington, D.C. He’s either sending in troops or National Guards, whom he “federalized” to other “blue” cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, and Portland, Ore. Trump plans to station them there permanently for war “training.” Thus far, his military-style operations are directed at terrorizing people of color with the aim of dividing and weakening workers as a whole, since he is taking money from them and handing it to his billionaire pals.
There are other candidates on the November ballot. The GOP has written off its unopposed New York mayoral nominee, former Guardian Angels chief Curtis Sliwa. Like Cuomo, Mayor Adams ran as an independent, but dropped out, possibly at Trump’s urging. But Adams’s name will still be on the ballot and voters can still select him for mayor. The candidate with a plurality of the votes will be elected.
On Mamdani’s side are two politically active health care unions, the New York State Nurses Association/National Nurses United and SEIU1199. And the Working Families Party was the first union-related group in his corner. Also for Mamdani: The United Auto Workers, who were early supporters, and The Teachers/AFT, who switched from neutral to Mamdani after the primary outcome. SEIU 32BJ switched from Cuomo to Mamdani after the primary.
The UAW highlighted Mamdani’s history of support for them during labor disputes, noting, “When we fought for better wages… Zohran Mamdani stood with us.” UAW represents thousands of campus student workers and researchers in New York.
AFSCME District Council 37, the politically active council for municipal workers, backs Mamdani. In the primary, it co-endorsed Mamdani and City Comptroller Brad Lauder, who came in third. Mamdani and Lauder, citing the ranked-choice system in place for the primaries, endorsed each other.
The city’s Hotel and Gaming Trades Council endorsed Mamdani in late September and promised to put boots on the ground, to join the tens of thousands of mostly young volunteers the Mamdani campaign recruited to pound pavements before the primary. The council also pledged to contribute $1 million to Mamdani from its political action committee. Donations to its PAC are voluntary. The New York City AFL-CIO endorsed Mamdani immediately after the primary win. It was neutral beforehand.
SEIU1199’s support for Mamdani is particularly notable and recent. The union represents health care workers from Maine through Virginia. It had its own contested election around the same time as the mayoral primary. Incumbent George Gresham, who had engineered the Cuomo endorsement, lost to reformer Yvonne Armstrong. She promptly put the union into a U-turn to Mamdani.
Armstrong lauded Mamdani’s “plan to ensure frontline caregivers can continue working and living in our city” through his housing proposals.
“Working people across New York City are uniting to defend our neighborhoods and our city from unprecedented attacks from extremist politicians and their billionaire donors who are taking away health care, ripping families apart, and endangering our democracy,” Armstrong said, in a reference to Trump and the corporate cabal backing him.
“We are proud to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who will fight side by side with us to ensure New Yorkers get the services they need, build affordable housing, and create safe communities.”
The city’s largest and politically powerful union, the United Federation of Teachers/AFT, was neutral during the primary because its members were split. Immediately after Mamdani won, it backed him.
“As a union, we have to protect public education, public employees, and public service from attacks from Washington, D.C.,” said President Michael Mulgrew. He succeeded Randi Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher, when she was elected AFT president. Mulgrew teaches vocational education.
“We have to make New York City safer and more affordable for working- and middle-class families,” Mulgrew continued. “We have to make the jobs of educators and nurses more attractive with better pay and benefits, and retain those already doing the work. We need a mayor who understands the task before us and who will help us get it done. The UFT Delegate Assembly has determined that Zohran Mamdani can be that partner as the next mayor of New York City.”
Mamdani has also made no secret of his readiness to battle Trump, especially on actions that hit suffering middle-class and low-income workers in their wallets and pocketbooks. That’s helped attract other unions to his side, along with a slew of national progressive Democrats, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., and, Mamdani says, former President Barack Obama.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., gave Mamdani a recent endorsement, but the top two congressional Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, both New Yorkers, have shut up.
Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 was the latest to join the fray on Cuomo’s side, via a long pro-Cuomo letter Business Manager Chris Erikson Jr., posted on the union’s website on September 30. Erikson noted Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726 and Teamsters Joint Council 16 and Local 237 endorsed Cuomo, too.
“The Democratic Party has to take responsibility for the loss of the only real Democrats in the primary, and now it’s down to only one true Democrat in the mayoral race,” Erikson wrote to his members. “Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Sliwa is a MAGA Republican. Democrats are neither Socialists nor Trump supporters.
“Both threaten the City of New York and our economic security. Our city needs proven leadership now more than ever, and Cuomo has the effective skills to protect our values,” he added.
“Cuomo has always been and is committed to union construction–where your economic security comes from–and there is nothing more important to us than that. Hopefully, the Building Trades and some of the other unions in this city realize how important this election really is and urge their members to fight for the middle class that Cuomo is committed to protecting,” said IBEW’s Erikson.
Erikson said Cuomo “will ensure NYC’s stability and raise the standards for all working people, building on his track record of raising wages, increasing access to healthcare, enacting the nation’s strongest paid family leave program, expanding apprenticeships and workforce development programs, and building unions to create more opportunities for New Yorkers to join the middle class.” His letter did not address the scandals that drove Cuomo from the governor’s office.
Mamdani’s free buses drew the ire of ATU Local 726, which represents mass transit workers on Staten Island. It said a similar experiment in Kansas City, Mo., failed. The facts are that free bus programs have been successful almost everywhere they have been introduced, often working to stimulate economies by making it easier for customers to get to local businesses and larger companies to attract people who need an affordable way to get to work.
At a mass press conference of Teamsters officials, Local 237 President Gregory Floyd touted Cuomo’s promise to hire 5,000 more public safety officers, returning the New York Police Department to levels last seen when Republican Rudy Giuliani—who has since become infamous as a discredited Trump attorney—was mayor 24 years ago.
“With his historic anti-gun laws and his (Cuomo’s) pledge to increase law enforcement on our streets and in our schools, he demonstrates that as a realistic elected official, and as a responsible parent, he gets it: Nothing is more important than protecting our families. Andrew Cuomo’s commitment to restoring the number of school safety agents shows his dedication to keeping our children safe,” said Floyd.
Cuomo draws funds from corporate contributors, many of them Republicans on Wall Street. Other outside big money to him comes from pro-Israel right-wingers alarmed by Mamdani’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
Cuomo’s voting pitches are aimed at what he often incorrectly assesses as the more right-wing residents of the outer boroughs of Queens and Staten Island and at Jewish voters.
Cuomo picked up the endorsement of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. In accepting it, he didn’t mention workers. Instead, he forecast huge red ink for New York for the next several years unless there’s a so-called pro-business climate.
“The Chamber of Commerce understands the challenges, and I pledged to them my administration will do everything in its power to be a responsible partner and together we’ll keep New York’s economy moving and help to ensure a vibrant and prosperous city for current and future generations of New Yorkers,” said Cuomo.
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