New York City District Council of Carpenters Endorses Andrew Cuomo

Nearly four years after resigning in disgrace, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised a room of hundreds of construction workers, union leaders, elected officials and others to save a city in crisis and to keep union members busy building affordable housing.

The New York City District Council of Carpenters endorsed Cuomo’s run for New York City mayor on Sunday, at a crowded event on the seventh floor of the union’s headquarters on Houston Street. Members of District Council 9, the painters’ union, also attended, and announced its endorsement of Cuomo’s campaign.

The endorsement comes one day after Cuomo launched his campaign, after months of speculation. It is not clear if other construction unions, including the union umbrella organization, the Building and Construction Trades Council, will follow suit.

As governor, Cuomo made large-scale infrastructure projects a hallmark of his administration, and on Sunday, he touted the completion of Moynihan Train Hall, the Second Avenue subway, the Mario Cuomo Bridge and the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport. He did not mention his vision for redeveloping and expanding Penn Station, which failed to move forward.

Such work means years of jobs for construction union workers.

“Those projects meant good paying jobs for my members,” Paul Capurso, head of the carpenters’ union, said to the crowd. “Since he left, there’s been no room for the priorities of working men and women in the halls of power.”

Cuomo also stressed the need to build “thousands” of units of housing. In his campaign video, he referred to these as thousands of affordable units.

“We just have to stop talking about it and start doing it. And government has to get out of its own way and let New Yorkers get to work,” he said Sunday. “Let’s build thousands of units, and create thousands of new jobs, and let’s do it now. And they’re going to be union jobs, of course.”

That got cheers from the crowd, but will not sit well with many real estate developers.

The union squeeze

Construction unions in the city have struggled to gain market share in the affordable housing sector, and developers have balked at mandating union-level wages on such projects, arguing that the higher costs ultimately result in fewer units being built. The carpenters’ union has been pushing a measure in the City Council that would require prevailing wages on some projects that receive city funding.

It is not clear if Cuomo has committed to backing the carpenters’ union’s bill, but as governor, he supported calls for prevailing wage requirements as a condition of developers receiving the property tax break 421a. Ultimately, the construction unions and the Real Estate Board of New York reached an agreement to require average wages.

While the industry clashed with Cuomo over that tax break and his refusal to block the 2019 rent law, he appears poised to capture real estate’s support as its most moderate option in the June primaries.

When asked about Cuomo’s campaign launch on Saturday, Real Estate Board of New York President Jim Whelan pointed to top concerns in the city’s continuing pandemic recovery, each of which got a mention in Cuomo’s campaign video.

Whelan pointed to the need to build more housing, reduce crime, address public safety issues and address “growing skepticism that government can fulfill its basic responsibilities to its residents despite levying some of the highest tax rates in the country.”

“Governor Cuomo’s entry into the mayor’s race should elevate the public conversation about practical ways to address these critical issues,” he said in a statement.

Jay Martin, of the New York Apartment Association, posted on X that before rent stabilized landlords back Cuomo or any other candidate, they need to hear “a legitimate plan to stop the defunding” of stabilized buildings.

Cuomo launched his highly anticipated run for New York City mayor on Saturday, positioning himself as the answer to an “out of control” city. In an 18-minute video announcing his campaign, he emphasized his decades’ worth of experience in government and the need to ramp up the city’s police force. During Sunday’s event, Cuomo reiterated many of these points.

“We know that our people need to feel safe, and we know that these politicians, now wanting to be mayor, made a terrible, terrible mistake,” he said. “They uttered the three dumbest words ever uttered by a government official: Cut police funding. They cut $1 billion from the police budget. What did you think was going to happen? It created a city in chaos.”

He was referring to 2020 cuts to the NYPD’s budget.

On Sunday he went further, and blamed Democratic Socialist candidates releasing “a wave of anti-semitism in the city.”

Cuomo’s emphasis on public safety out of the gate will likely appeal to those in the real estate industry who backed Mayor Eric Adams for similar reasons. Much of the industry also shares his disdain for socialist candidates.

Cuomo stepped down in 2021, after a report by state Attorney General Letitia James found that he sexually harassed 11 women and cultivated a culture of “fear and intimidation,” in his administration. The report concluded that he “sexually harassed a number of state employees through unwelcome and unwanted touching, as well as by making numerous offensive and sexually suggestive comments.”

During his farewell speech, Cuomo maintained that the most serious allegations detailed in the report were not credible but acknowledged that he “offended 11 women” and that he was “truly sorry” about it. He has denied the allegations and filed a notice of intent to sue one of the women who accused him of sexual harassment, alleging that she made false and defamatory statements.

He didn’t address the allegations directly in his campaign video or during Sunday’s event.

“Did I make mistakes, some painfully?” he asked in the video. “Definitely, and I believe I learned from them and that I am a better person for it and I hope to show that every day.”

His opponents in the mayoral race responded over the weekend with reminders of those allegations, as well as accusations that his administration obscured the true number of deaths from Covid in state nursing homes. A group representing families whose relatives died in the nursing homes is urging New Yorkers against voting for Cuomo, the New York Post reports.

Roughly an hour after Cuomo’s event ended, Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running for mayor, held an “emergency press conference” in response.

“At a time when we all want to turn the page on endless chaos, Andrew Cuomo’s scandals, corruption, and disregard for our City except for when it serves his personal ambitions, are literally the last thing New Yorkers want to replace Eric Adams,” Lander said in a statement.

Meanwhile, some former and current elected officials attend Sunday’s event, including Assembly member Edward Gibbs, Council member Farah Lewis, former New York State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson and former Sen. Kevin Thomas. Blackstone’s Bill Mulrow, who served as Secretary of State under Cuomo, also attended.

Cuomo is courting other possible endorsements, including healthcare union 1199SEIU, Politico New York reports. He was also reportedly spotted outside 32BJ SEIU’s headquarters on Saturday.

32BJ SEIU was among the groups that called on Cuomo to resign. At the time, President Kyle Bragg urged Cuomo to “take responsibility for his well-documented actions and how they have hurt women.” A request seeking information on where the group now stands was not immediately returned.