By Frankie Spotorno | UBC Member, Local 2790
Governor Hochul & Bruce Blakeman
Bruce, I’ll give you credit. You’ve been actively campaigning on our electric bill. While I appreciate that, there are thousands of rank-and-file members of the building trades waiting for the phone to ring. We don’t need another speech. We need good-paying jobs. Not broken promises year after year.
As you both know, I may be a Republican, but I’m for the working families of America and New York State. I’m getting thousands of questions from my brothers and sisters asking one thing: Should we vote for Hochul or Blakeman?
My answer is simple. I’m throwing my support to the candidate who will sit down with me and discuss the issue that hits every kitchen table: work. I will back the candidate who stands with both public sector unions and private sector unions. The private sector is the backbone of our economy. Without contractors building, roads paving, and projects starting, the tax base collapses and the middle class gets squeezed out.
Let’s be honest about who’s hurting right now. It’s not just union carpenters waiting on a call from the hall. It’s the senior citizen on a fixed income watching property taxes climb every year while Social Security barely moves. It’s the hardworking residents of New York State living paycheck to paycheck on jobs that aren’t making ends meet. It’s the young couple in Yonkers who both work full time and still can’t afford a one-bedroom apartment.
For too many years, especially in the City of Yonkers, our IDA tax dollars went to out-of-state, non-union contractors paying well below area standard wages. That is not how you protect seniors or families living check to check. When Albany or the county gives a tax break, that money belongs to the waitress, the plumber, the carpenter, the nurse’s aide, the retiree paying taxes on a home they bought 40 years ago. If we give the break, we should demand the job pays prevailing wage and goes to a New York company.
Prevailing wage is not a handout. It’s the floor that keeps wages from racing to the bottom. When contractors pay area standard wages, the carpenter spends money at the local deli. The electrician buys groceries in Mount Vernon. The laborer pays rent in Yonkers. That’s how we lift seniors and paycheck-to-paycheck families without raising taxes. Good jobs create strong communities. Low-wage, cash jobs create strain.
Whoever wants to meet — whether it’s Governor Hochul or Bruce Blakeman — and will give me their word that every local IDA dollar goes to signatory contractors, or to non-signatory companies that pay prevailing wage on any project using IDA money, will get my endorsement.
I’m not looking for guarantees written in stone. I’m looking for your word that you will do everything in your power to make sure New York tax dollars go to reputable companies located in New York State. Set that meeting up. I already reached out to the Bruce Blakeman campaign. Governor Hochul, my door is open in Albany. I’ll take that ride.
My brothers and sisters want to know which way they should vote. They deserve an answer before Election Day. So do the seniors choosing between medicine and taxes. So do the families working overtime and still coming up short.
Let’s remember the math. In New York State there are approximately 1.7 to 1.8 million unionized workers. Organized labor represents about 20.6% to 22.5% of the state’s total wage and salary workforce. That gives New York one of the highest union density rates in the country, trailing only Hawaii.
That’s not a special interest. That’s one in five workers. That’s the families who keep the lights on, the water running, and the buildings standing. That’s the taxpayers funding IDA breaks. That’s the seniors who built this state and now need us to protect it.
Sit down with us. Talk jobs. Talk IDA reform. Talk prevailing wage. Talk about how we keep seniors in their homes and get families off the paycheck-to-paycheck treadmill. Show us you understand that a paycheck is more powerful than any promise.
Your friend, Frankie Spotorno, Yonkers, UBC Member, Local 2790
