UAW Area 9A’s endorsement of Lander over one of many wealthiest members of Congress indicators that pro-labor voting information alone not assure labor’s backing.
Brad Lander speaks throughout his marketing campaign launch occasion at Nitehawk Cinema on December 10, 2025, in New York Metropolis.
(Andres Kudacki / Getty Photographs)
This morning, United Auto Employees Area 9A endorsed former New York Metropolis comptroller and Metropolis Council member Brad Lander for New York’s tenth Congressional District.
“Now we have identified and labored with Brad for years and know he walks the stroll,” UAW Area 9A Director Brandon Mancilla defined. “In each position he’s served, he’s known as out unhealthy bosses, walked picket strains with all our locals, and leveraged the instruments of his workplace to struggle for employees. From housing to employees’ rights, we all know Brad might be a steadfast champion for working individuals in Congress.”
Area 9A has established itself as a left-wing voice within the area. Representing greater than 50,000 employees within the higher New York Metropolis space, New England, and Puerto Rico, the regional physique has distinguished itself by backing socialist and progressives early in races, together with towards incumbent Democrats. Empowered by a revamped endorsement course of and militant management domestically and nationally, the union has not shied away from political dangers. Area 9A beforehand co-endorsed Lander in his current mayoral bid, alongside then-longshot democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and Jessica Ramos. Now it would work in America’s third-wealthiest congressional district to unseat Consultant Dan Goldman.
“I’m deeply grateful to have the help of my longtime allies at UAW Area 9A, a few of the finest organizers within the nation. They’re making a strong assertion that working individuals don’t need billionaires shopping for seats in Congress,” Lander stated. “For many years, I’ve labored with labor to make sure that employees don’t [get] screwed. In Congress, I’ll work with the UAW and different labor unions to make sure that employees don’t get screwed by AI, by app corporations, or by billionaire bosses.”
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Lander’s labor bona fides date again to his time on the Metropolis Council. Within the 2010s, through the rise of the gig economic system, he helped move laws that established just-cause protections for the fast-food trade, ended erratic scheduling for fast-food and retail employees, and created the nation’s first assured residing wage for rideshare drivers.
As comptroller—an impartial municipal workplace tasked with overseeing the fiscal well being of town—Lander discovered inventive methods to navigate the turbulence of Wall Road and expanded the scope of the workplace by establishing a “employees’ rights staff” throughout the Bureau of Labor Regulation. “As comptroller, I recovered over $20 million for employees whose bosses cheated them out of the prevailing wages they have been owed, and made positive the businesses we invested in revered the rights of their employees to arrange.”
Lander additionally touts endorsements from socialists like Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in addition to progressives like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and the New York Working Households Occasion, which ought to carry weight in NY-10, one of many nation’s Democratic strongholds.
In 2022, the district was redrawn to incorporate components of Decrease Manhattan, South Brooklyn, and the brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn, together with Lander’s Park Slope. The race that Goldman received, making the Levi Strauss inheritor one of many 10 wealthiest members of Congress, is now notorious amongst New York progressives—an instance of what to not do when attempting to safe a good district towards a average candidate. A gaggle of left-liberal candidates, led by Yuh-Line Niou and Mondaire Jones, cut up the progressive vote; Goldman, who spent greater than $4 million of his fortune, received the first with simply 26 % of the vote.
Since taking workplace, Goldman’s unqualified help of Israel and his acceptance of donations from AIPAC have curried little favor amongst his district’s progressives. He additionally refused to endorse Mamdani, who carried the tenth district with over 60 % of the vote within the normal election and practically 70 % within the main. Whereas Goldman has voted reliably for pro-labor laws, Area 9A’s endorsement of Lander suggests {that a} robust AFL-CIO scorecard alone could not be ample because the labor motion seeks to regular itself towards a Trump administration stocked with anti-union figures. The race will take a look at whether or not organized labor’s rising impatience with wealth and warning contained in the Democratic Occasion can translate right into a main upset.
