By Frank Spotorno, with Dan Murphy
Last month, Congressmember Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, (AOC), led a protest outside of an Amazon warehouse with Bernie Sanders, calling for the workers to be allowed to join a union. That’s great and I agree with the right of everyone to join a union. I’m a proud union member of the Carpenters union.
But AOC’s support for unions in NYC is six years too late, and her comment at the rally, that “New York City is a union town,” unfortunately isn’t true anymore.
I have some experience in trying to support unions across New York City. In 2016, I ran for the same seat in Congress that AOC now represents. And during my campaign, I would show up at construction sites to see how many of the laborers were members of a union. What I found out what that most of the workers on the skyscrapers being built were non-union, and most of the non-union labor were undocumented immigrants who were being paid cash under the table.
There are labor laws on the book in New York City and New York State requiring a prevailing living wage to be given to workers on construction jobs. That law hasn’t been enforced in decades, and for that reason we have skilled members of trades sitting home most of the year.
But the most disturbing decision AOC made against the working class in New York City was her opposition to Amazon building a headquarters in Queens. I wanted that HQ’s to be built here because it was going to be built with union labor, 11,000 jobs for union rank and file members. They get paid well but they do their jobs well and deserve every penny they get. But they needed that Amazon job, and literally, AOC took food out of the mouths of their families by opposing it. And the 25,000 other jobs for non union New Yorkers who could have worked in the Amazon HQ’s? And the businesses surrounding the HQ’s who could have opened or expanded? The $3 Billion in tax incentives proposed by then Governor Cuomo would have resulted in $125 Billion in additional state revenues through payroll taxes, sales taxes and income taxes from the 25,000 employees at the HQ’s.
The Staten Island Amazon warehouse that AOC and Bernie were protesting at was built with non union labor, otherwise known as scab labor, some out of state workers who come in and take union jobs, but most from undocumented workers who don’t pay payroll taxes.
This is how our economy works, and if you are competiting against other states, who are offereing the same or better to Amazon, then Amazon goes somewhere else. So while AOC claims she is pro-union, and that NYC is a union town, I would ask New Yorkers to think twice and look at the damage done by AOC and those who claim who are pro labor.
I have always believed that good paying jobs and education are the key to success. I owned an Elevator manufacturing plant in Astoria Queens, in AOC’s district for 25 years until I recently retired. I made my elevator cabs here in NY, and in the United States. I firmly believe that we need to make more of our products here in America, and import less of our products from China and oversears.
I always say, “Past Performances Equals Future Promises.” And my closing thought to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is, yes, New York City was once a union town. I wish you would have supported the thousands of union jobs that my brothers and sisters in labor would have received if Amazon built their HQ’s here in the Big Apple. If that HQ’s were built, then perhaps you could have said again, that NYC is a union town.
Editor’s Note: Frank Spotorno ran for Congress in the 14th District of NY in 2016, before AOC ran in 2018. He is exploring entering the race again this year, as his friends in the district tell him that the same concerns and problems that existed six years ago, still exist today, and nodoby is listening. Spotorno received more votes based the ratio of campaign dollars spent, than republican John Cummings, who ran against AOC in 2020, and whose campaign spent $11 Million. Frank is the co-founder of https://www.facebook.com/BringOurJobsHome/.
