They all endorsed Bill Finch for mayor, but now a coalition of trade unions has decided to get behind Democratic nominee Joe Ganim for the general election, the announcement made at the Steel Point redevelopment area featuring Bass Pro Shops as the major tenant.
As mayor, Ganim cleared the East Side site for development while Finch recruited Bass Pro as the anchor. Ganim recently said that Finch received just about every endorsement in North America, but he received the ultimate endorsement of the people defeating Finch in the Democratic primary. Ganim had the backing of the Bridgeport Police Union in the primary, Finch just about every other union.
“We are very pleased to endorse Democrat Joe Ganim for mayor of Bridgeport for the coming general election on November 3, 2015,” said Fairfield County Building Construction Trades Council Union President Pete Carroll in a statement released by the Ganim campaign. “Joe has earned our support due to his positive positions on a number of key issues meaningful to the trades, including Joe Ganim’s desire to create good jobs for more citizens in the Bridgeport area and his commitment to supporting fair wages and cooperative approaches to negotiating with unions.”
“I am thrilled to have the full support of this key trade union coalition representing so many union members in Bridgeport and I pledge to lead the City of Bridgeport forward to create jobs, stimulate good economic development and to ensure fairness for workers,” says Ganim. “With the high cost of living and the need for good jobs, we must do more to bring good construction projects to Bridgeport and to rebuild dilapidated sites in Bridgeport which have been blighted for too long.”
Pete Carroll and the unions are full of it, pure and simple. Pete Carroll and his union (electrical) think so much of Bridgeport, they built their new headquarters in Monroe. Talk about two-faced. Well all you out-of-town union people did a a great job getting Finch elected in the primary.
Follow the timeline (dates approximate).
Jan – Aug: Ganim supporters (many in the comments section of this very blog) refer to Steelpointe as Steal Point. Bass Pro Shops is a negative, non-taxpaying, low-wage, bringing guns to BPT, bad minority hiring track record addition to Bridgeport. BAD BAD. Canvassers trained to talk about the Bass Pro/Steelpointe negatives.
Aug – Sept (key Primary season): Ganim supporters now say Joe is really responsible for development at Steelpointe, Finch only following what Joe started, no mention of why it took contractors so long to trust dealing with the city.
Oct: Joe receives endorsement from union, at Steelpointe in front of Bass Pro Shops.
What a change from 10 months ago. You cannot make this stuff up.
Very good summary.
These endorsements are hilarious. Just five weeks ago Pete was talking about Finch the same way. All Ganim supporters have been extremely critical of every development on Steelpointe. Now he totally embraces them on the very site that sent him to prison. Jeff Kohut has really given the best critique of how worthless these union endorsements are, just look at the August 12 blog.
Joe Ganim is correct, the best endorsement will be on Nov. 3 when voters choose honest change in the City.
Where does the IAFF Firefighters union stand? Has it endorsed yet? The folks who run into danger when the rest of us run away? They were strong for Finch. As for the trade unions, I fear the Carpenters pulled the rug out from under the Finch campaign’s safe harbor in the Jobs Creation Party and delivered those proxies to Ganim. Wasn’t this reported in an undercurrent of another article in the Post or OIB? Had the Sept. 2 paperwork error (still unexplained; was it someone’s error it wasn’t filed or someone’s arrogance in false anticipation of winning the primary?) not upended Mayor Finch, the loss of control of Jobs Creation Party delegates organized by the Carpenters might have upended the mayoral re-elect effort on Sept. 18th because of the rump delegates pledged surprisingly to Ganim. A surprise, I fear to everyone except Ganim and the Carpenters. (Personally, it disturbs me because it was Carpenters leaders I met at a civic meeting who urged me strongly to support Finch. I went to headquarters that very day and began volunteering for Finch and then joined the fusion campaign for Foster. So forgive me for feeling a bit jilted by the date who brought me to this dance.) Our friends in the Carpenters owe us a deeper explanation of how they began to turn away from Finch the week of the primary. Did they begin to dissent and act opposite to their endorsed candidate before the primary or did they make a strategic decision after the results were known that led to the defections two days later when the Jobs Creation Party organized? Why? What were they thinking? What agreements were made? This is the greatest flip-flop in this still-unfinished once-in-lifetime and made-for-Hollywood amazing election. Battle stations, everyone.
Firefighter Local 834 has not endorse anyone, one of the main reasons is most of their membership do not live in Bridgeport so there is no real concern.
Labor union endorsements mean little for the reason Ron Mackey stated about the Local 834: a majority of the members live out of town.
Oh really? Surprising? NOT! So predictable. Now the CT Post will endorse Ganim too. No offense to OIB but the integrity of the reporting and reliable messages on your website are 100% more reliable than that poor excuse called a CT Post newspaper. Actually, ask around the city how many people actually read that junky unreliable paper. I do not! At all! But I have asked about people who know about OIB and many do. 🙂