Hochul makes up with unions after Hector LaSalle

About a month before last year’s presidential election, Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a debate watch party hosted by United Federation of Teachers, the New York City teachers union. Before Donald Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage, UFT President Michael Mulgrew offered the governor a hearty welcome. “We protect and support you because you’re also protecting and supporting us and the children of this city and state,” Mulgrew told the small gathering of union members, calling the Hochul “a friend of labor.”

Few would have described Hochul that way two years earlier. Just months after winning her first gubernatorial election in 2022, she seemed to make an enemy of the state’s powerful labor movement. Her choice for chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, Hector LaSalle, drew strong opposition from a range of unions unhappy with some of his past decisions. Her selection of LaSalle – and her refusal to pull his nomination in the face of widespread opposition from the state Legislature – angered many in organized labor, especially after unions had helped push her over the finish line in a relatively tight gubernatorial race. 

Since then, Hochul has mended fences with segments of the labor movement. But even as she repairs her political relationships, Democrats around the country are grappling with a shift away from the party by the working class, which has traditionally made up a key part of Democrats’ coalition. New York is no different, and unions are warning that Democrats cannot rely on historical alliances in future elections.

Following the LaSalle nomination fight, even some of the most vocal opponents of the pick were not quite ready to completely write off Hochul. LaSalle was a misstep, sure, but Hochul had only been in office for a little over a year and still had a long time before her next election to prove that she would listen to the concerns of labor. And unions were willing to see whether Hochul would learn anything from the incident.

In the two years since, Hochul has strengthened her relationships with a variety of unions, including those who were among her loudest critics at the time. Until recently, part of the issue was that Hochul did not have a dedicated labor liaison as part of her staff. That changed in the latter portion of last year, when the governor chose a downstate intergovernmental affairs staffer who came from a labor background to serve as her union representative.

“She didn’t have a dedicated person to work with unions, communication with the AFL, seemed very sparse and just kind of unproductive,” said Brandon Mancilla, director of United Auto Workers Region 9A. The traditionally progressive union, which was a vocal opponent of LaSalle’s nomination, said that while the relationship between Hochul and its members isn’t perfect, it has improved significantly since the start of 2023. “I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that the relationship’s gotten better, and I think we’ve had a lot more progress over the last calendar year,” Mancilla said.

Communications Workers of America District 1 had also expressed displeasure with Hochul’s decision to nominate LaSalle, and his decision in a lawsuit involving some of their members was one of the reasons why the judge faced so much opposition. But a representative from that union said Hochul has since taken steps to improve her relationship with them, signing some of the union’s priority bills and generally working as a better partner. For the CWA, the LaSalle nomination now is considered a thing of the past.

As evidenced by her warm welcome at the UFT debate watch party, Hochul has also taken steps to shore up her relationships with influential teachers unions, despite some ongoing differences. She has worked closely with New York State United Teachers on a push to ban minors’ use of algorithmic social media feeds – launching a campaign around legislation at the UFT headquarters – and to ban cellphones in schools. NYSUT and UFT butted heads with Hochul over her proposal last year to change the school aid funding formula, but the governor has since abandoned the most controversial part of that proposal. And NYSUT officials said their relationship with Hochul has been an improvement over the tense relationship with her predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Still, cracks are apparent even among unions generally supportive of Democrats. A little over a month after Mulgrew praised Hochul at the UFT debate watch party, he had harsh words over her decision to reinstate the congestion pricing program, which the UFT had sued to permanently block. “It’s not what I expected to see Democrats doing a week after the election,” Mulgrew told the New York Post last year. “It’s insane! Stop screwing the working class!”

The congestion pricing opposition put Mulgrew on the same page as Trump, whose administration has pulled federal approval for the program and directed New York to turn off the tolling cameras. It offers a stark reminder that union backing of Democrats is not a sure thing, particularly after the party’s losses among working-class voters last year. 

In a somewhat rare occurrence for labor, the Transport Workers Union endorsed two Republican members of Congress for reelection last year. TWU International President John Samuelsen said both Rep. Mike Lawler and then-Rep. Marc Molinaro had demonstrated their commitment to union priorities, and endorsements have never been limited by party affiliation, despite the historic alliance between organized labor and Democrats. “The theory is the Democrats are allowed to be for shite for working people and yet the trade unions would be expected to continue to support them because they’re the lesser of the evils,” Samuelsen said. “That’s the theory. And we completely reject that theory.”

The TWU didn’t support Hochul in her last election and has been engaged in a contract dispute with the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority. A year ago, the union released attack ads for St. Patrick’s Day calling the governor a “snake.” Those contract negotiations are still ongoing.

Hochul has also found herself in the unenviable position of dealing with a large wildcat strike by corrections officers around the state. While acknowledging the difficult working conditions that prison guards face, she has used fairly strong language in denouncing the illegal strike, which is not formally sanctioned by the correction officers union. “New York is a union state. Yes it is,” Hochul recently said to reporters. “There are union representatives elected (but) this is not a sanctioned strike by the correction officers union.” She didn’t express concerns that her stance on the strike would be taken as a rebuke of labor writ large in the state.