Philly mayoral candidate Cherelle Parker just snagged another big union endorsement from SEIU 32BJ
Parker has been vaulted into the top tier of candidates in a crowded mayor's race thanks to two major labor endorsements she won in the last two weeks.
Mayoral candidate Cherelle Parker on Thursday scored a coveted endorsement from Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, a major political spender in East Coast municipal elections that represents 12,000 workers in Philadelphia.
It’s the second significant endorsement in two weeks for Parker, a former City Council member, and it vaults her into the top tier of a crowded field of contenders seeking to win the all-important Democratic primary May 16. The Philadelphia Building Trades Council, a coalition of more than 30 construction-industry unions, endorsed Parker last week.
SEIU 32BJ, which is based in New York City and has 175,000 members overall, primarily represents low-wage workers in property services, such as cleaners, security officers, and facilities workers in city schools and the Philadelphia International Airport.
”Cherelle has stood side by side with members in our fight for fair contracts, workers rights, and good public schools,” Daisy Cruz, the union’s district leader for the Mid-Atlantic region, said in a statement. “She is a part of our community and understands the needs and challenges of working people.”
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Parker said the endorsement was “personal” for her.
“My grandmother who raised me, and the matriarchs of my family, supported their families as domestic workers that were paid under the table,” Parker said. “I saw firsthand their struggles without the protections and the retirement security that SEIU 32BJ ensures for all of its members.”
SEIU 32BJ’s membership is more diverse than the building trades, and it often backs candidates from the left wing of the Democratic Party or funds progressive political organizations like the Working Families Party.
Parker, however, is a more centrist Democrat, and the Working Families Party has endorsed former Councilmember Helen Gym in the mayor’s race.
In 2019, SEIU 32BJ was a major funder of an independent expenditure campaign that helped elect Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks to Council, the first third-party candidate to win in over a century.
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The union’s support of Parker likely takes a major funding source off the table for the Working Families Party’s efforts to support Gym through an outside spending group as it did for Brooks.
Endorsements from SEIU 32BJ and the Building Trades Council were part of outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney’s winning formula in 2015, the last open mayor’s race. But Parker is competing in a larger field of candidates, some of whom have won other major labor endorsements that helped propel Kenney eight years ago.
The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, for instance, endorsed Gym, and the largest union of city workers, District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, backed grocer Jeff Brown.