Union ties could make or break the Chicago mayoral race

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QUICK FIX

CHICAGO — As mayoral campaign season in America’s third-largest city barrels toward a runoff, one candidate has been backed and bankrolled by the powerful Chicago Teachers Union — and another is trying to distance himself from the conservative Fraternal Order of Police.

Progressive Brandon Johnson and centrist Paul Vallas, both Democrats, fought through a nine-way race that saw the incumbent mayor fail to make the April 4 runoff.

The election is “a movement that unions helped to anchor,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates told Morning Shift.

Johnson, a former public school teacher who’s done paid work for the CTU — his opponents call him a lobbyist — has received millions from teachers’ unions, and is set to receive up to $2 million more from a recently-announced plan to apportion $8 from each CTU member’s monthly dues to PACs for him.

His ascent coincides with increased focus from the union in electoral politics, Chalkbeat recently reported.

Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools who’s been criticized for relative conservatism in a Democrat-run town, nabbed endorsements from the local Fraternal Order of Police, firefighters and construction unions.

That Vallas and Johnson were backed by unions might be the factor in common that set them apart from the field, a fellow at Brookings has argued — and maybe too much of a factor at that, Vallas campaign consultant Philip Swibinski suggested, pointing to Johnson’s roots with the CTU.

Vallas isn’t accepting money from the FOP to avoid “being seen as beholden,” Swibinski said.

“Obviously the FOP leadership has been controversial, and I think he wants to strike an appropriate balance,” Swibinski said. Its recently reelected president, John Catanzara, has downplayed the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and compared a Covid vaccine mandate to Nazi Germany, statements for which he apologized. The union did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment on the election.

Organizers in Johnson’s camp say the CTU is the glue holding together a coalition, not the sole force of his campaign. Davis Gates noted that she and the heads of the local SEIU and SEIU Healthcare, also behind Johnson, are all Black, and her members are mostly women.

That shows union membership isn’t just “white guys in hard hats,” she said.

“The organized labor that’s behind Brandon are unions that have routinely fought for issues that lift up working people,” said Bill Neidhardt, a campaign adviser for Johnson.

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On the Hill

GOP PROPOSAL PUTS PENSIONS IN PLAY: A Republican-backed plan to reclaim unspent Covid relief funds could result in a million union workers not receiving promised retirement benefits, “while doing little to improve the U.S. fiscal picture,” according to a Reuters report.

GOP members in the House proposed taking back less than $80 billion in unspent Covid relief funds as they attempt to cut federal spending, with more than half of that coming from an earmark for troubled union pension funds.

The funds represent a relatively small amount, but backers of the plan argue something is better than nothing.

“Clawing back any unspent funds from the trillions that Washington flooded the economy with during the pandemic is an obvious starting place for any debt ceiling discussion,” House Freedom Caucus Executive Director Tim Reitz told Reuters.

Around the Agencies

THE ESG LAWSUIT DOL WANTS MOVED: The Biden administration last week stepped up its attempt to have a Republican challenge to its ESG investment rule transferred out of the Texas district where it was originally filed.

In a legal filing submitted Tuesday, government attorneys blasted the addition of a plaintiff who lives in the Northern District of Texas as a naked attempt to shore up the legal justification for directing the case there.

“Plaintiffs’ maneuvering underscores the lack of connection to this District and Division at the outset of the case while heightening the public perception that Plaintiffs’ choice of venue was, in fact, for the purpose of judge-shopping.”

The lawsuit — originally titled State of Utah v. Walsh, but now carries acting Secretary Julie Su’s name — is just one of several high-profile cases in which the administration has accused the GOP of steering lawsuits to ideologically friendly judges.

One way to boil down DOL’s argument in this case: It does not pass the smell test that the attorney general in Utah (and a bunch of other states, including Texas) opted to not file a lawsuit in its own borders or in D.C., where the policy was crafted, and instead sent it to Amarillo, Texas, which famously is closer to several state capitals than it is its own.

But the administration’s position faces long odds. Essentially, they are asking Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — or, potentially, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — to hand off a case because the court has been perceived as predisposed to side against Democratic policies.

More agency news: “NLRB GC Overstepped In Captive Audience Memo, Suit Says,” from Law360.

In the Workplace

NATION’S LARGEST EMPLOYER GROWS UNION MEMBERSHIP: The number of federal employees in a union jumped by nearly 20 percent, among a larger bump in union interest nationwide, the White House said in a statement Friday.

“Since the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) began working with agencies to better inform federal workers of their right to join a union, nearly 80,000 workers have done so,” the White House said, in a statement about the work of their pro-union task force.

OPM and White House did not respond to requests for additional comment, and POLITICO has not been able to independently verify the stats.

More workplace news: “Set It and Actually Forget It,” from The New York Times.

Unions

ALU HUNTS FOR SECOND WIN IN KY: The Amazon Labor Union on Saturday announced the start of a card collection drive at an Amazon air hub in Kentucky, the company’s largest.

National organizers with the Amazon Labor Union, including ALU President Chris Smalls, joined several dozen workers in Hebron, Kentucky, to kick off the campaign.

The upstart union won a surprise victory last year but has failed to duplicate that success and has faced some internal criticism of its leaders’ decisionmaking in the months following its April 2022 win.

Management engaged in “illegal intimidation” by saying tables set up by the union were a safety hazard, local organizers said on social media. The company prevented non-employees from rallying with workers and checked workers’ badges, “making them feel singled out,” Greyson Van Arsdale, a volunteer supporting unionization efforts who does not work at Amazon, told Morning Shift.

The decision to keep non-credentialed people off the property was standard process for worker safety, spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis said. In a statement, the company called the rally “a very small gathering.”

More union news: “Hollywood Braces for a Strike as Writers Demand More From Streamers,” from Bloomberg.

Even more: “UAW runoff election count still unresolved; Fain holds lead, Curry files protest,” from the Detroit Free Press

IN THE STATES

CALIFORNIA CLASSIFICATION: A U.S. appeals court delivered a win to Uber and Postmates on Friday, reinstating a challenge to California’s worker classification law, Reuters reports.

Now, “the state must face claims that the law known as AB5 is unconstitutional because it improperly singles out app-based transportation businesses while exempting many other industries,” Reuters said.

More state news: “Kin of MTA Workers Who Died of COVID Facing End of Line for Health Benefits,” from The CITY.

Immigration

ENCOUNTERS STAY DOWN: Officials had about the same number of encounters with people trying to illegally cross the southern border in February as in January, bringing the number to its lowest since February 2021, The Associated Press reported.

“In comparison, U.S. officials stopped migrants 221,693 times between the ports of entry along the Mexican border in December,” according to the AP. The drop-off came after the Biden administration announced stricter efforts to curb illegal immigration in early January.

What We're Reading

— “Macron’s defiant show of force in parliament exposes a weakened president,” from POLITICO Europe.

— ”Pricey Child Care Is Keeping Many Parents Out of the Workforce,” from The Wall Street Journal

— “Layoffs Can Take Surreal Turn When the HR Department Faces the Axe,” from Bloomberg.

— ”Pain In the Tech Industry Is Beginning to Hit the Rest of Us,” from The Wall Street Journal

— “YouTuber-Turned-Lawmaker Sacked for Never Showing Up For Work,” from Vice.

— “Michigan adds LGBTQ protections to anti-discrimination law,” from The Associated Press.

— “Lawyer Who Abandoned Labor Case Threatened With More Sanctions,” from Bloomberg Law.

— “VA Claims Progress in Union Talks. The Union Begs to Differ,” from Government Executive.

THAT’S ALL FOR SHIFT!

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the Morning Shift newsletter mischaracterized Greyson Van Arsdale’s role in unionization efforts.