In the last weekend before a dead-heat race against Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy ends Tuesday, John DeStefano got a boost from actor and human rights activist Danny Glover Saturday. Touting the New Haven mayor’s labor record, Glover took a break from shooting films and organizing workers nationwide to stand behind DeStefano at labor rally and a basketball camp.
Jumping up on a wall outside the Yale-New Haven Hospital, Glover delivered a pro-union, pro-DeStefano speech to a throng of 100 community activists and hospital workers Saturday morning. Some passed out union cards. Others held DeStefano signs. Then the crowd lined up for autographs from the Lethal Weapon star.
Glover is active on the labor-organizing circuit —” In the last three weeks, he’s spoken to hotel workers in Puerto Rico and laundry workers in Cincinnati, Ohio. He took a red-eye Friday night from Vancouver, Canada, where he is filming the movie Shooter, to campaign with DeStefano and U.S. Senate hopeful Ned Lamont.
Glover said ever since he first came to New Haven in 1982 to perform a play at the Yale Repertory Theater, he’s been meeting with New Haven community groups and unions from time to time. He met DeStefano at a community meeting, and said “John understands” workers’ needs —” a fair wage, benefits they can live on, and health care. “I know he’ll take care of business here at home and for the state.”
SEIU Local 1199 President Carmen Boudier, whose union was one of the first to endorse DeStefano, applauded the mayor for the “fabulous job” he did to broker a deal on the $430 million Yale-New Haven Cancer Center. DeStefano negotiated between the city, Y‑NH and 1,800 service workers who siezed the opportunity to try to unionize. Boudier promised the rank and file would be door-knocking come Tuesday. “We hope to have by election day 500 of our members on the street, pulling out the vote to make sure he wins.”
DeStefano himself missed out on Boudier’s pro-John fervor —” he opted not to attend the rally. “In the agreement with the hospital, the mayor had agreed to be impartial as far as labor organization at the hospital,” explained DeStefano campaign Spokesman Derek Slap.
Just blocks away, Dan Malloy, the mayor of Stamford and the party-endorsed candidate in the guvernatorial primary, held his own rally by the hospital’s Women’s Center to push a new cancer plan and “pledge to protect and extend mandatory insurance coverage for women’s health issues,” according to his campaign. Malloy Campaign Manager Chris Cooney downplayed DeStefano’s star-studded week of endorsements, including civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. “It was two people who came from out of town and then another person who came from out of town.” He said Malloy has statewide support among statewide African-American pastors.
Glover sped down to a basketball camp at the Ralph Walker rink on State Street to meet up with DeStefano and his running-mate, West Hartford Mayor Scott Slifka. Glover spoke to a crowd of hundreds of players and parents then signed boys’ shirts and shook parents’ hands.
“Danny is a community magnifier —” to get people energized, excited, to see possibility and opportunity and bring people together,” said DeStefano. “That’s what’s great about having him come back today, because the election is all about change.”
Glover left after the basketball event to campaign for Ned Lamont for the rest of the day. DeStefano made stops in New Haven at a concert on the Green and at Gospel Fest, where he rallied gospel-listeners from the stage —” “Are you ready for the Holy Ghost tonight?” —” and urged his hometown citizens to go to the polls Tuesday.