Labor unions split on mayoral endorsements

[hrmjustin]

In this year's mayoral race, the labor movement is a house divided. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, boasting 45,000 members in the city, has endorsed City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

The city’s largest union, SEIU Local 1199, which represents 200,000 health care workers, just backed Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. A day later, Local 1180 of the Communication Workers of America came out swinging for city Controller John Liu

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Organized labor hoped to rally behind one Democratic candidate, maximizing its clout — and their chances of having a sympathetic ear in City Hall. Instead, the labor movement is hopelessly splintered, as unions one by one peel away to make endorsements on their own.

Read more at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/labor-unions-split-mayoral-endorsements-article-1.1354806

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. I can't imagine why any union would endorse Ms. Quinn. Unless it an and/or its leadership has...

... been well treated by the status quo over the last 12 yrs and expects more of the same.

I'd say DiBasio is pretty well-positioned to win a run-off against Quinn ... if Weiner's late entrance doesn't con fuse the electorate.

[hrmjustin]

2. Quinn does what Lord Bloomberg tells her to do and this is why I do not like her.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Anyone who transforms ... more or less overnight... from a fire-breathing,

Greenwich Village radical into an uber-accommodationist de-facto employee of Bloomberg Inc. effectively gives up her right to be taken seriously forever after.

[hrmjustin]

4. One of the best posts I have ever read on this site!!!

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. Hey... there's lots more where that came from, bub.

But...... shucks. Thanks.

[hrmjustin]

6. Hey you gave me something that I can explain now to my Quinn supporting friends.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. People who didn't suffer under Bloomberg can afford to maintain an idealized...

... pic of CQ. First lgbt, first woman, etc.; her election would be demographically symbolic.

But that's IT. *Demographically* symbolic only. In point of fact, her election would ratify everything that is socially and politically backward in our social order: the rule of money; the absolute monopoly of the monied class over the political system; the turning of truth in political discourse itself ON ITS HEAD. That's a hell of a lot more important than demographic "firsts", seems to me.

FWIW, I knew CQ years ago when she was starting out ( volunteered in her first council run, in fact) so I'm not happy to have to oppose her. But the point is not so much that her positions are too conservative; the point is she can't be TRUSTED. She doesn't believe what she says. Yes... all pols shift and change over time; politics, like life, is not simple, nor is it black and white.

But Ms. Quinn's transformation goes well beyond that. She was up here ( in Riverdale) the other nite at a candidates' forum. She conceded that her most monumental betrayal ( she didn't call it that but that's what it was) was pushing thru Bloomberg's term limits repeal. She resorted to the old Ed Koch line about "if you agree with me 100% of the time you need a psychiatrist."

But no apology, no second thoughts and really,as was the case at the time, no coherent explanation. I don't think she gets that that one betrayal... as big as it was... is not seen by her critics in isolation but rather as emblematic of whole series of lower-profile but no less appalling betrayals that ensued as soon as she undertook her collaboration w. Bloomberg.

[hrmjustin]

8. I remember her first run for office as well. She had so much promise and then it all went

downhill. She sold her soul for power.