Nick DeFiesta Photo
The union label replaced the party label as the point of contention in the Ward 1 aldermanic race during a campaign debate Monday night.
The 90-minute debate, held in Yale’ Sterling-Sheffield-Strathcoma (SSS) Hall, pitted incumbent Democrat Sarah Eidelson against Republican Paul Chandler. The debate was sponsored by the Yale Daily News’ city desk.
To date the campaign has seen Chandler discounted for being a Republican on a deep-blue campus and Eidelson facing criticism for no longer being a full-time student. Monday the dialogue swung more to the role Yale’s UNITE HERE Locals 34 and 35 play in city politics. Eidelson was one of a team of UNITE HERE-backed candidates who swept into office in 2011 and took control of the Board of Aldermen. She works for Local 34 as a graphic designer.
“This idea of a union bloc, I think when that comes up is when I’m voting on the board. Am I making decisions with an Independent mind and prioritizing interests of students?” Eidelson said in response to a question from moderator Cody Pomeranz, a Yale junior. “The answer to that is yes.”
Eidelson said the Board of Aldermen has voted unanimously so many times over the past two years not because of “a lack of debate” thanks to the abundance of union-backed legislators, but instead due to the “vision statement of” legislative priorities adopted by all 30 aldermen, including aldermen outside the labor bloc, at the start of their term in 2012. (Read about that here.)
When Pomeranz pressed her further if there were instances in which Yale and its unions might conflict, Eidelson pushed back.
“I represent the people in this room. I represent Yale students,” Eidelson responded. “I don’t represent Yale as an institution, and I don’t represent Local 34 as an institution when I’m voting on the board.”
Chandler disagreed, citing a statement by Local 35 and Central Council President Bob Proto after Yale’s unions settled contract negotiations six months early last year. Proto told union workers they won a great contract because “we control 20 out of 30 seats on the Board of Aldermen”. Chandler said Eidelson is “naïve” to say that did not offer “a little bit of a power conflict.”
Chandler continued to criticize labor’s control of the Board of Aldermen in a later question, after Pomeranz asked him if he had consistently attended aldermanic meetings. Chandler admitted that he had not been a frequent visitor to City Hall. He claimed that was due to the lack of transparency currently on the board.
The “meat of the discussion,” he told the audience, happens behind closed doors, making it difficult to look at aldermanic meeting minutes and determine exactly how a decision was made. Were he elected to the board, he argued, he could force public debate that might not otherwise occur.
When the canddates were asked whom they supported in the mayoral race, Chandler said he will vote for Justin Elicker, contrasting the candidate’s “independent mind” with Toni Harp’s support at last week’s mayoral debate for two controversial figures in previous city development scandals, Anthony Avallone and Sal Brancati. Eidelson, meanwhile, reiterated her support for union-backed Harp, citing personal experience with the state level in work for the board’s youth committee, which Eidelson chairs.
The role of unions in city politics arose again later in the debate when senior Matt Breuer asked Eidelson why she hasn’t more strongly identified as a labor-backed candidate and Chandler how he differs from union-backed candidates on the board.
“Make no mistake about it, I am pro-union, I am a progressive Democrat, and I believe that workers should have unions so they have rights. That’s simple and I have no shame in pronouncing that,” Eidelson responded. “To say I’m not an independent voice — that’s just not true. I come to my beliefs independently.”
Chandler began his answer by clarifying that he is not opposed to labor unions using their power to achieve liveable wages and working conditions. Instead, he told the audience, he is against Locals 34 and 35 using their “collective ability” to elect candidates to office.
“When any supermajority, regardless of your political affiliation … takes over a specific political entity, it’s inherently a conflict of interest,” Chandler said. “What I’m out here to do is say New Haven deserves authentic representation.”
He cited downtown Alderman Doug Hausladen’s creation of an independent slate of candidates called Take Back New Haven. He noted that the labor supermajority’s response was to move someone — Yale junior Ella Wood (who was sitting in the debate audience) — into Hausladen’s ward right before the election registration deadline to try and unseat Hausladen in the Democratic primary. (Hausladen won.)
To close, Eidelson reiterated that the Board of Aldermen is comprised of “30 people who are their own independent voice” committed to advocating for their neighborhood and working together to make “huge changes” in the city.
“It was an unprecedented move to set a legislative agenda and to go back and forth until all 30 of us were on Board,” she said.