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LABOR COULD SWING NYC’S ELECTION TO ZOHRAN  
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Eric Blanc
June 19, 2025
Labor Politics
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_ How rank-and-file activists helped break their unions from
politics-as-usual _

, Labor Politics

 

Zohran Mamdani has shocked the political establishment by turning the
New York City mayoral race into a nail-biter. How has a
thirty-three-year-old Muslim socialist gotten this close to heading
the world’s most economically and politically important city? Some
pundits have pointed
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Zohran’s charisma and brilliant use of social media. Others have
stressed the strength of his volunteer canvassing army
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well as the popularity of his policies
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lower living costs. All those things are true.

But one piece of the puzzle has so far been overlooked: Zohran has
received just enough labor support to prevent this race from becoming
an Andrew Cuomo cakewalk.

Thousands of rank-and-file supporters have successfully pushed some of
the city’s biggest unions to endorse Zohran or at least not endorse
Cuomo. Though not all union leaders have been brave enough to buck the
political establishment, New York City’s young leftist upstart has
generated enough labor support to come within electoral striking
distance. The union vote could be decisive in a tight, low-turnout
primary election. And union _power_ will be pivotal for overcoming
the billionaire-backed onslaught that is sure to come if Zohran wins
the June 24 primary.

UAW BREAKS FROM POLITICS-AS-USUAL

One sad thing about labor politics in contemporary America is that
it’s taken for granted that union leaders will almost always back
the establishment Democratic who is most likely to win, since
endorsing the front runner gives unions a “seat at table” from
which they can then lobby for the interests of their members.

But the fact that this strategy is so common does not make it any less
narrow-minded. At best, billionaire-backed electeds provide crumbs. At
worst, such politicians actively undermine workers’ lives (and
members’ trust in their unions). Despite Cuomo’s awful track
record
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workers as governor, and despite his disgraced ouster due to sexual
harassment charges, it seemed at the beginning of this race like
politics-as-usual would reign in the House of Labor. Indeed, Andrew
Cuomo launched his mayoral run in early March from the carpenters’
union hall.

Zohran’s rank-and-file backers knew from day one that they would
have to get organized to avoid a repeat of the dynamic in 2018, when
exactly zero unions endorsed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary
challenge against Democratic Party leader Joe Crowley. Not only are
unions unaccustomed to joining anti-corporate political insurgencies,
but Cuomo, like Donald Trump, has a long history of using his
political power to punish opponents. As DC 37 member Joshua Barnett
put it to me, “Cuomo is a real vindictive son of a bitch. So if you
don’t endorse and he wins, it could cost you.” Challenging a bully
is risky.

With Zohran’s initial polling running in the low single digits, his
earliest union supporters understood that it would take a lot of
outreach and persuasion to get their unions on board. So they began by
building up ad-hoc rank-and-file organizing committees, starting in
the UAW’s Region 9a, and AFSCME’s massive DC 37, which represents
city workers.

They had their work cut out for them even in a progressive union like
the newly reformed UAW
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“There were lots of doubts about Zohran’s viability early on,”
one rank-and-file member told me. “But we knew we really needed an
early UAW endorsement, to make it clear to the rest of labor — and
the rest of the progressive movement — that he was a serious
contender.”

Zohran’s supporters succeeded in mobilizing their coworkers to come
out in large numbers to the union’s endorsement forum, highlighting
his labor platform [[link removed]], including
a plan for a $30 minimum wage by 2030, as well as his broader push for
a rent freeze, fast and free buses, and free childcare. And they then
pivoted to a concerted grassroots lobbying campaign to convince the
members of UAW Region 9a’s Community Action Program.

This organizing worked. On December 4, 2024, Zohran got his first
labor endorsement when Region 9a endorsed him on an unranked slate of
three. Then on May 30, 2025, once Zohran had begun to surge, the
union urged its members
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“Some may say we took a chance,” explained 9a director Brandon
Mancilla, “but the actual reckless gamble is to endorse status quo
candidates that caused the crisis working families face in the first
place.”

Such views are not widely shared among New York City union leaders. On
April 14, Cuomo received the endorsement of two of the city’s
biggest unions, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (HTC) and SEIU
32BJ, which, respectively, represent tens of thousands of hospitality
and building service workers. These “highly sought”
endorsements, noted
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“Cuomo’s status as the clear frontrunner.” Though not
surprising, 32BJ and the HTC’s decisions were particularly
disheartening since both unions in 2021 pushed for Cuomo’s
resignation over sexual harassment charges.

This type of realpolitik is, above all, selfish_. _It is personally
beneficial for top union leaders to make nice with Cuomo, and doing so
might occasionally benefit the narrow short-term interests of some of
their members. But there’s a price to pay: throwing the rest of the
working class under the bus, not just in New York City, but
nationwide. Everybody understands that this race has become a
referendum on the future of the Democratic Party, a test of whether
voters want a party that pushes for the old status quo or one that
will vigorously champion workers and challenge billionaires.

It’s particularly disheartening to see working-class leaders
continue with the same old political playbook at a moment of
unprecedented crisis in America and the world
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As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained
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3,000-strong Zohran rally on June 14,

We will never get past Donald Trump if we continue to elect the same
people and make the same decisions that got us here in the first
place. And I will tell you there are people out there that say if you
make this endorsement your political career will be over. And to that
I say “I don't care.” We will never get to a better place if
everyone's just worried about themselves and making decisions that are
selfish.

DC37 MAKES WAVES AND THE UFT STAYS NEUTRAL

By late April, there were two big New York City union endorsements
still up for grabs: DC37 and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).
The former is the city’s largest union, with 150,000 members and
89,000 retirees. A powerhouse of city and state politics, DC37 had
endorsed Cuomo for governor in 2018, despite the fact that he had in
2012 slashed
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worker pensions through his much-hated “Tier 6” policy that raised
the retirement age and raised employees’ retirement contributions.

Massive labor machines like DC37 do not have much of a tradition of
including members in political decisions. Joshua Barnett, a longtime
DC37 member who works in Local 375’s public housing division,
explained to me that “during the last mayoral primary [in 2021], we
all first found out over the news that the union had endorsed Eric
Adams, that’s how little the leadership had tried to involve us
members.” But this time around, “even though the process was
technically still the same, our grassroots movement, all our vocal
pressure, made things a bit more inclusionary.”

Like hundreds of other DC37 members, Barnett had spent the preceding
months rallying support for Zohran. Even so, on the eve of the
union’s endorsement announcement in late April, Barnett was
convinced the leadership was going to endorse Cuomo. “I was really
surprised, _pleasantly_ surprised, that [our union leaders] actually
listened to us.”

On April 23, DC37 made political waves by not only refusing to back
Cuomo, but by endorsing the young democratic socialist second on its
slate. Laura Pirtle Morand, a member of DC37’s electoral endorsement
committee, explained to a local reporter
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she and other union leaders were “inundated” with calls by their
members to support Zohran. “It did help to make sure that we
thoroughly considered him. It made me take a second look at him."

DC37’s backing was a major breakthrough. Crucially, DC37 members
tend to be older Black and Brown workers — the key working-class
demographics to which Zohran’s disproportionately college-educated
movement, like the Left generally, needs to expand
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win. The union’s endorsement has already translated into
systematically emailing, calling, and sending mailers to its enormous
membership, as well as participation in official campaign events.
Praising Zohran’s “understanding that keeping this city affordable
is the most important thing a mayor can do now,” DC37 Treasurer Maf
Misbah Uddin brought down the house at the June 14 rally: “God bless
Zohran, god bless all you. Enjoy! Fight harder! Win bigger! Together
we can win together.”

Similar grassroots efforts also emerged in the UFT, though these arose
later since the union’s activists were focused on internal union
elections for much of this year. Again, it took bottom-up pressure to
move the needle up top. Various teachers I spoke with were very
worried that the union leadership was preparing to endorse Cuomo
despite his vociferous
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school policies as governor.

“We all deserve so much more from our government and our unions,”
explained Sonia Silva, a recently retired teacher. “But that’s
going to take each of us standing up.” Along those lines, Silva on
her own initiative wrote and proposed a pro-Zohran resolution to the
union’s retirees’ meeting. Though the resolution was not allowed
to be debated in the meeting, it nevertheless sparked discussion among
members and contributed to shrink the space for a potential Cuomo
endorsement.

With so many members making their voices heard, UFT’s leadership
sent out a survey to try to get a broader read on members’ views.
Though the poll results were never made public, the UFT leadership
ended up endorsing neither Cuomo nor Zohran, announcing
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both candidates had widespread support among their ranks. Anti-Cuomo
forces saw this as a significant victory.

Momentum has continued to spread in recent weeks. A rank-and-file
movement has sprung up in 1199 SEIU, where members are demanding the
newly elected leadership rescind
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predecessors’ Cuomo endorsement. John Samuelsen of the Transport
Workers Union of America spoke at the June 14 rally, declaring that
“every mayoral candidate thinks they know something about public
transit and they don't know shite. But Zohran reached out, talked to
the workers, talked to worker leaders, and he’s firm in his
understanding of what working people, riders, and New York City
transit workers need to make this system better.”

And just yesterday, OPEIU Local 153 announced
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Zohran, growing a now-respectable list of labor endorsers, which also
includes Doctors Council SEIU, CIR/SEIU, UNITE-HERE Local 100, IATSE
Local 161, PSC-CUNY, and Teamsters Local 804. In an era when unions
routinely endorse candidates beholden to the bosses, Zohran’s
inroads within organized labor constitute a significant step forward.
And in an exceedingly tight race, they could be a crucial tipping
point.

LOOKING FORWARD

It would be hard to exaggerate the stakes of this mayoral election.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it
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week’s campaign rally:

This can no longer be a city of _pied-à-terres _for the rich and
the global elite. New York City is a union town, New York City is a
town of the working class. If we can turn the page in the biggest and
best city in the United States of America, we can turn the page in our
country too. But it takes courage, New York, because we are up against
the Goliaths.

Even those unions that have so far failed to show any signs of
political courage might very soon get another chance. According to
political tradition, all unions should line up behind the Democratic
nominee after June 24. But Cuomo has already announced
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he will run on an independent ballot line for the November 4 general
election if he loses the primary. If Zohran wins the primary, union
leaders would again have to make a choice: act on fear and narrow
self-interest — or on hope and a fighting vision for all
working-class New Yorkers.

Labor support would be even more decisive in the general election
since a Zohran primary win will inevitably spark a scorched-earth
scare campaign of epic, unprecedented proportions. Despite the fact,
as Ezra Klein yesterday noted
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that democratic socialists regularly get elected to run European
cities, real estate tycoons, Trump-supporting billionaires, corporate
CEOs, and Cuomo sycophants will stop at nothing to scare New Yorkers
into thinking that a Zohran mayoralty will result in fiscal
bankruptcy, not to mention crime sprees and anti-Jewish persecution.

Unions are the only force in New York City with the reach and power to
decisively counter such cynical scaremongering. They can point not
only to Zohran’s actual program, but also to the strong historical
precedent for effective socialist urban governance, from New York City
under Fiorello La Guardia
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Milwaukee’s “sewer socialists.”
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It’s no coincidence that fighting labor unions were the central
pillars of each of those successful urban precedents. When you’re
going up against the most powerful people on earth, just winning an
election is not enough.

To actually win ambitious social-democratic policies in the face of
intense employer and political obstructionism, elected officials
normally need a large amount of people power _outside_ of the state,
in workplaces and neighborhoods. We don’t yet have that level of
organized working-class power in New York City. But Zohran’s
campaign is helping bring it into being by jump-starting rank-and-file
activity within organized labor, by raising working people’s
political expectations, and by recruiting thousands of new young
activists into a pragmatically radical movement
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MORE

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Everybody in the area should canvass for Zohran: sign up here
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you live, you can phonebank for Zohran
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crunch time, and it’ll take all of us to win.

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The intense excitement around Zohran — and the ways this campaign
has already boosted bottom-up labor activity — is remarkably similar
to Bernie Sanders, a phenomenon that I discuss at length in my latest
book, _We Are the Union, _which you can get here.
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No matter what happens on June 24, we’re going to need a powerful
labor movement in NYC and beyond. Sign up here to become a salt
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ERIC BLANC's substack is laborpolitics.com
[[link removed]] Author of "We Are the Union: How
Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big";
Assistant Professor Rutgers Labor Studies; organizer trainer in the
Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.

A former high school teacher, Eric Blanc has covered the strike wave
for Jacobin, The Nation, and The Guardian. He is the author of We Are
The Union, Red State Revolt and Revolutionary Social Democracy. 
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