The Central Connecticut Labor Council endorsed Councilman Dan Drew for Mayor. The Central Connecticut Labor council is an affiliated group of multiple AFL-CIO member unions. The endorsement came after all three candidates simultaneously interviewed on August 1st.
Ron Frost, president of of the Labor Council, said that Drew sought their endorsement, "We were reached out to by Dan." Frost said that it was very important for his group to get all of the candidates in the same room for a simultaneous interview. Drew was joined by incumbent Sebastian Giuliano, and primary/independent challenger Christine Bourne, in fielding questions from any members of the Labor Council who could attend. He said the questions were selected at random, and focused on issues of importance to labor, such as the city's unused property in Middletown, and the plans for using union labor.
Frost said each candidate was told to take about 5 minutes. Christine Bourne was first, and she used 3-4 minutes. Giuliano fielded similar questions and took over 10 minutes. When Drew spoke, Frost said the mayor was unable to refrain from speaking up with corrections, and he had to remind him that the forum was not a debate.
The vote by the assembled members was unanimously in favor of Drew, and was based solely on the interview, "We went on what was said before us."
"Dan was the one who really backed everything we were looking at."
Drew was very pleased, “I am honored to have earned the Labor Council’s endorsement because they’re interested in improving life for our middle class families. That means working every day on creating well-paying jobs with good benefits and it means working everyday on easing the tax burden.”
Seems to be a very narrow criteria for endorsing a candidate: only to take into consideration their responses to questions on a particular day?? Why wouldn't they take into consideration the record of the candidate and what they have actually done for the City or not done for the City?
ReplyDeleteSteven. You are a university professor. I would assume you are very intelligent. Tell me this does not have Vinny written all over it ?!?! You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.
ReplyDeleteand AFSCME, which encompasses the working class level of City employees not the managers or BOE, backs Giuliano. Dan is far from the only cross endorsed candidate.
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