Mayoral race gets messier putting union kingmakers in a pickle

The water’s still cold, but everyone’s jumping in.With City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ launching her 11th-hour bid Wednesday, the messiest New York City mayoral primary in living memory now pits an incumbent mayor against a former governor, a current council speaker, both a sitting and a former comptroller and a hodgepodge of progressives.Who will bring order to the chaos?Though formally in the hands of voters, Gotham’s real electoral power rests with the city’s special interests, and particularly with its unions.The big players’ memberships number in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and their influence can decide who stays afloat and who’s dead in the water.Kingmakers include 1199 SEIU, the health-care workers’ union; the 32BJ building-workers’ union; District Council 37, the largest municipal-employee union; the Hotel Trades Council, representing hotel workers; and the United Federation of Teachers.Rank-and-file members have split from labor leadership and moved to the right at the national level, but in city races, union endorsements still make a big difference.For one thing, New York’s workforce is far more unionized than the nation as a whole.About 20% of the city’s total labor force belongs to a union — double the national rate.Among government employees, the gap is even wider: 95% of the city’s 354,572 government employees were part of a public-sector union as of 2023, compared with just 25% of federal employees.Everyone wants a friend in Gracie Mansion, but no one more than the city’s public-sector unions.Unlike federal workers’ unions, who negotiate with multiple agencies, almost all city workers bargain only with the mayor, giving them the strongest incentive to back candidates who’ll offer them richer deals.For city unions, the mayor’s race isn’t just about policy or personalities — it’s about paychecks.In city elections, the vast majority of public employees — up to 88%  — choose whichever ca...