Will union turmoil reduce NYC labor’s 2025 election clout?

New York City’s unions play an oversized role in municipal elections where fewer than one in four voters participate. For candidates for public office, unions can be a source for endorsements, volunteer campaign labor, campaign cash and thousands of votes. Mayoral candidates often start vying for labor backing before they even declare their candidacy, and unions derive much of their clout from backing the right candidates at the right time. In city politics, the municipal workers union District Council 37, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, the building service workers union 32BJ SEIU and the New York City District Council of Carpenters are all seen as major power-brokers.

But as the city careens toward the most chaotic mayoral primary election of this century, three of the city’s top unions are beset by internal turmoil. The head of the powerful United Federation of Teachers Michael Mulgrew is facing an internal challenge from Amy Arundell, who served as a UFT Queens borough representative, over a bitter fight over retiree health benefits. George Gresham, longtime president of health care workers union 1199SEIU, faces a spirited challenge from a slate of incumbent union officers led by Yvonne Armstrong, currently a senior executive vice-president of the union. And former Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Rich Davis was pushed out last month amid sexual harassment allegations right after he was reelected in a hotly contested race that has his opponent Evangeline Byars crying foul.

In the case of the UFT and 1199SEIU, the internal campaign and balloting coincides with the campaign season culminating in the city’s June 24th mayoral primary, no doubt complicating the endorsement process for the unions and the mayoral and down ballot candidates pursuit of those endorsements.

“The elections in the UFT and 1199 will be hotly contested, so the landscape is fractured in terms of union politics, and to some degree it dovetails with the fracturing of the electoral landscape – including the mayoral landscape – in terms of endorsements and funding,” said Joe Wilson, a noted author and labor historian who also consults with unions on strategy. “There’s not a clear path that labor is projecting to turn New York City into a labor town. Because currently it’s a real estate town.”

For candidates, courting a union for an endorsement is always a delicate process – even more so if it’s not clear who will be leading the union by the time the election happens. As they hope the union will endorse them, candidates also have to decide who to support within the union.

“If a candidate has a friend who is the incumbent (union president) then you have to back your friend, but if your friend looks like he is losing – then it's time for the soft touch, and you wait as long as you can to make a decision,” said veteran political strategist George Arzt. “If you wait too long, people will also remember that.”

Divided Federation of Teachers

The UFT doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to its mayoral endorsements. They backed Scott Stringer for mayor in 2021 and Bill Thompson in 2013. They backed Alan Hevesi in 2001. Despite that, candidates can be expected to continue to eagerly seek the nod and the advantage that support from its nearly 200,000 members conveys. 

But right now internal union politics remain fluid and as unpredictable as what’s happening citywide. Ballots for the UFT go out on May 1 and counting starts in June. 

The UFT has a very elaborate candidate endorsement process that engages thousands of members in the process at the City Council District level which includes screening committees. Mayoral candidates and citywide office contenders are questioned on their views on education, health and labor issues as well as on the viability of their own candidacy.  

Ultimately, the union’s leadership and executive board will make recommendations that get voted on by the union’s 3,800 delegate assembly.

In recent years, Mulgrew, who has led the union since 2009, has come under fire for initially supporting a cost-cutting measure that would have changed the health care plans for municipal retirees. The de Blasio administration proposal sought to save the city $600 million annually by shifting some 250,000 retired city workers from their current Medicare plans to a “Medicare Advantage” plan based with a private health insurance company.

Mulgrew, along with the rest of the city’s Municipal Labor Committee, initially supported the measure. But he reversed course after the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees won several decisions in three cases in the New York State courts. 

Mulgrew’s flip-flopping hasn’t quieted internal strife. In June of 2024, he lost a key proxy battle when the Retiree Advocate slate – which campaigned in opposition to the Medicare Advantage plan – defeated members of Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus in an election for leadership of UFT’s retiree chapter, 17,226 votes to 10,114 votes. Unlike most of the city’s municipal unions, UFT retirees are eligible to vote in union elections.

Arundell said her campaign is about pursuing a deeper engagement of the rank and file – a third of which she estimates are supporters of President Donald Trump. 

“That engagement needs to include a democratic space where people can speak their minds,” Arundell said during a phone interview. “(They need to be able to) say what they think."

She believes the current leadership under the Unity Caucus banner is too top down, and she pointed to her union's anemic internal voter turnout.

“It’s very common for union officers to get reelected time after time,” said Joshua Freeman, a professor emeritus at Queens College as well as a noted author and labor historian. “They have all kinds of tools, particularly patronage, to help keep themselves in office by getting people who they are aligned with into various positions.”

As Mulgrew sees it, he is plugged into the membership and deserves reelection.

“You have to listen to your members,” Mulgrew said during a phone interview. “They made their voices loud and clear and they said we don’t want (Medicare Advantage) no matter what, and you listen. If you don’t listen, you are going to get in trouble.”

“Fresh leadership” for health care workers?

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, one of the city’s largest unions, was seen as a key supporter for de Blasio in 2013. They injected new life into Maya Wiley’s mayoral campaign in 2021, when the union, made up largely of women of color, hoped to send a Black woman into Gracie Mansion. 

Longtime president Gresham, who has led the union since 2007, now faces a spirited challenge. With balloting going on during the month of April, a slate of incumbent union officers led by Yvonne Armstrong, currently a senior executive vice-president with the union, is running under the Members First Unity Slate. The votes will be counted on May 3.

Union insiders, not cleared to talk with the press, said the union had also experienced significant internal stress when union employees successfully organized a union with the CWA NewsGuild. Negotiations are ongoing for the first contract. 

The Armstrong slate’s core issue is their belief that the current leadership is not up to the challenge posed by the radical shifts of power in Washington that have taken direct aim at the federal civil service and the nation’s legacy social safety net. 

“We believe that our union is punching below our weight class. With unions under attack and proposed cuts threatening Medicare and Medicaid, we must harness the full strength of our organization to take on these fights,” the Members First Unity opposition website says. “We all know a different leadership is required now.” 

But also at issue is the sense that Gresham has reneged on a promise to step down. Members First Unity’s website continues. “In 2022, we elected President George Gresham with his promise that this would be his last term. He has broken his promises, and 1199 members are not getting what we voted for. We’ve had enough.”

A spokesperson for Gresham didn’t respond to a request for comment on the assertion the 1199SEIU leader had gone back on his word.

“As the union faces new and urgent challenges, it’s fair to ask whether fresh leadership is needed to navigate what comes next,” Armstrong wrote in a statement to a City & State. “Health care workers are confronting threats from corporate hospital closures, anti-labor politicians, and stagnant wages in a changing industry. Members deserve leadership that is transparent.”

“Rank-and-file members never asked for a divisive union election fight, especially at a time like this when health care funding and jobs are under unprecedented attack,” Gresham countered in a written response. “This is a time we all need to be together, not be divided.”

Gresham continued, “The officers and staff in the opposition have zero experience heading a union and zero political clout with key elected officials and national allies.”