MOST UNIONS HERE and elsewhere are focused on the 2024 presidential election. But officials who are part of AFSCME Council 93 this week turned their attention to an election that’s more than a year away, and for some of them, involves their boss inside Boston City Hall.
Several union leaders met earlier this week to make an exceptionally early call in the 2025 race for mayor, unanimously endorsing the incumbent, Michelle Wu. They and their locals represent roughly 5,000 workers in City Hall departments, as well as employees of state agencies and some hospital facilities within Boston’s borders.
The union and the Wu administration earlier this year signed a new contract that includes the offer of a four-day work week for AFSCME members if they work the same number of hours as in a five-day week.
This week’s endorsement caught Wu’s team by surprise, since they hadn’t yet asked for the backing of her reelection campaign, according to Christopher “Tiger” Stockbridge, the union president who has served as a code enforcement sergeant for the city for more than 30 years. “We’re just making it clear where we stand,” Stockbridge said when asked about the timing.
The endorsement comes as the race still remains in its early stages, with no official candidates yet. Wu is widely expected to run for a second four-year term, but has not set a date for her reelection campaign’s formal kick-off.
Josh Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, is weighing a run, and South Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn, the son of former mayor Ray Flynn, has ramped up his criticism of the Wu administration. A North End restaurateur has said he plans a run, and perennial candidate Althea Garrison said she will throw her hat in, too.
Stockbridge said there is plenty of chatter at community events about potential candidates. Kraft has been making the rounds at such events, including at the Ward 20 Democratic Committee fall fundraiser held last weekend inside a West Roxbury restaurant.
Several dozen people attended, including local elected officials, many of them backing Wu. Kraft made his way through the small crowd, and was introduced by at least one person as his brother Jonathan, the president of the Patriots. Josh Kraft, who heads up the Patriots’ philanthropic arm, corrected them, and when asked, said he is still mulling a mayoral run, according to attendees.
In the last mayoral election, an open race due to former labor leader Marty Walsh leaving City Hall for the Biden administration, the city’s unions were split among the various candidates during the preliminary and the final, with some funneling money to outside groups known as super PACs, which have few limits on raising and spending cash. There was more unity during the 2023 municipal cycle, when only City Council contenders were on the ballot. Four unions (SEIU Local 32BJ, the Boston Teachers Union, SEIU 1199 and UNITE HERE) banded together to fund a super PAC that successfully backed a slate of Wu-aligned candidates.
Jim Durkin, the legislative director for AFSCME Council 93, said he doesn’t anticipate his union getting involved in a super PAC, with a focus instead on phone banking, mailings, and door-knocking. As for potential Wu rivals, “don’t waste your time knocking on our door,” Stockbridge said.
Questions for Charlie Baker
Charlie Baker, while he was the Republican governor of deep blue Massachusetts, twice left the presidential part of his ballot blank rather than vote for any of the candidates running in 2016 and 2020. He repeatedly made clear that he was no fan of Donald Trump as the real estate mogul staged a hostile takeover of the GOP, at both the national and the state levels.
Asked who, if anybody, will get his vote this time around, Baker balked at answering on Thursday. “I’m not here to talk about that. I’m just not,” he told reporters.
Baker had just finished speaking to the New England Council, up at the UMass Club on the 32nd floor of One Beacon. Most of his talk focused on his current job as NCAA president and paying college athletes.
But in front of the friendly crowd – which included former Republican governor Bill Weld, his mentor and a supporter of Kamala Harris for president, and state GOP chair Amy Carnevale, who backs Trump but is more amicable towards Baker than her predecessor, Jim Lyons – Baker fielded a question from the audience about whether his future could include another run for public office.
Baker said as he wound down his tenure as governor, he hadn’t expected to get a call floating his name for the NCAA post. “So, I never rule anything out based on the course of my own career,” he said. “But I think we live in really challenging times and it’s important really good people step up and play.”
But Baker turned testy afterwards when asked by a group of reporters to weigh in on the 2024 race for president. When a cameraman gamely asked for his opinion about the Patriots’ new starting quarterback, Drake Maye, Baker said, “I’m not here to talk about that, either.”
A reporter made another attempt, and asked him to rate how his successor, Gov. Maura Healey, is doing. “I’m here to talk about college sports and the NCAA. And that’s why I’m here, okay?” Baker said. “I’m not here to talk about other stuff. So if you don’t have any questions about any of that, great.”
Baker then turned away and made his way through the crowd towards the exit.
Michlewitz weighs in on ballot questions
Aaron Michlewitz, the House Ways and Means chairman who hails from the restaurant-rich North End of Boston, on Thursday came out against Question 5, a proposal by a California-based group that would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers and allow pooled tips between staff in the front and the back of the restaurant operation.
“Being in the Legislature, I’m not a fan of ballot initiatives in general, but in particular this one,” he said at a press conference with the “No on 5” side, arguing that its passage would lead to higher prices for consumers and layoffs across the industry.
What about the other four ballot questions? Michlewitz said he is “probably” leaning against Question 2, which would eliminate passing the MCAS test as a graduation requirement, and he is still weighing Questions 3 (unionization of Uber and Lyft drivers) and 4 (legalization of psychedelics).
“I mean, I’m obviously ‘no on 1,’” he said with a laugh, referring to Question 1, which would explicitly authorize Auditor Diana DiZoglio to audit him and his colleagues. “That would be pretty remarkable if I wasn’t.”
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