Congressman John B. Larson was endorsed Friday by UNITE HERE, a labor union with huge political influence in New Haven, but less so in the 1st Congressional District of Greater Hartford, where the Democrat is facing his first serious nomination challenge since winning the open seat in 1998.
The Larson campaign used the endorsement to renew its effort to establish a narrative branding the congressman’s strongest challenger, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, as hostile to unions, an accusation that Bronin calls false, especially as it applies to UNITE HERE.
“Our workers deserve an ally who will fight for them every day, not an antagonist who has tried to end their labor rights,” Larson said in a statement announcing backing by what his campaign called a “powerful and influential 300,000-member multi-industry union.”
As an organizer primarily of hotel and food service employees, UNITE HERE has become a political force in convention cities like Las Vegas. In Connecticut, its success organizing Yale graduate students and food workers, as well as regional hotels, make it a power in New Haven.
Joshua Stanley, the secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 217 and a vice president of its international, said the union represents about 1,000 workers in the solidly Democratic 1st Congressional District of Hartford and 26 other communities. The primary will be held on Aug. 11.
Given that August primaries attract far fewer voters than general elections, backing by any group that can contribute to turnout is a prize. But the endorsement in a safe Democratic district is unlikely to attract the major expenditures and outreach that UNITE HERE has provided in battleground states and districts.
“We’re going to be urging all of our members to support Congressman Larson as a congressman who has a strong record of supporting labor and working families,” Stanley said.
Its endorsement of Larson comes as the union is engaged in difficult contract negotiations with the Waterford Group, the owner of DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Hartford. It will formally present the endorsement at 5 p.m. Saturday on an informational picket line timed to draw the interest of fans walking to the nearby Hartford Yard Goats game.
“There are two separate stories that we want to be telling here. One is that in the affordability crisis that we’re in, we’re demanding a fair contract,” Stanley said.
Waterford did not respond to a request for comment on the union’s claims it now is pushing a contract with substandard wages.
The redevelopment of the Hartford Hilton into a smaller DoubleTree and high-end apartment building was a public-private partnership. The structure is on public land, and state bonding was used to lower the cost of financing through the Capital Regional Development Authority.
“We need the Democratic Party to not let hotels get away with using public money to cut union jobs, undercut statewide union standards and undercut the ability of workers to get back on their feet,” Stanley said. “So that’s one story, and the other story is we’re standing there with John Larson as we need elected champions who have a strong record of supporting labor and working families.”
Stanley did not respond directly to whether he agreed with the Larson campaign’s depiction of Bronin as hostile to labor and UNITE HERE’s efforts to maintain the DoubleTree as a union facility. Instead, he repeated his praise of Larson and concern with the public financing enjoyed by Waterford.
“We have a lot of positive feelings for Congressman Larson as a longstanding champion of workers and unions,” Stanley said.
The Larson campaign says Bronin deserves blame for the loss of some union jobs at the hotel when it was downsized, allowing the construction of 147 apartments on the top 11 floors and retention of 170 refurbished hotel rooms on the lower 11.
The redevelopment deal was negotiated when Bronin was mayor. On Friday, Bronin pointed to contract language requiring Trumbull Associates, the Waterford affiliate that ran the Hilton, to honor its union contract as DoubleTree and “engage in good faith negotiations and enter in a successor agreement” when it expired in 2022.
It further stated that a city tax break could be revised if hotel workers no longer were represented by UNITE HERE.
“The only reason there are union jobs at the DoubleTree in Hartford today is because my team and I worked to save those jobs and demanded that they stay union when the pandemic threatened to close the Hilton Hotel and kill every single job at that location,” Bronin said.
Bronin said he’s walked picket lines with UNITE HERE and would do as a member of Congress.
Gov. Ned Lamont and Bronin’s successor, Arunan Arulampalam, attended the reopening of the hotel in March 2024 as the DoubleTree by Hilton and The Revel apartments.
The quote Stanley approved for use in the Larson press release was more critical of Bronin, at least by implication:
“Generational change for the Democratic Party cannot mean abandoning workers and the legacy that elected leaders like Larson have built by having our backs. We cannot sit by during this affordability crisis and watch candidates who have sided with anti-worker, union-busting employers run against champions for working families.”
The basis of the challenge to the 77-year-old Larson by Bronin, state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford and Hartford school board member Ruth Fortune largely has been a call for generational change and new voices.
Larson previously has rolled out endorsements by, among others, the construction trades and International Association of Machinists. The latter represents workers at Pratt & Whitney in Larson’s hometown of East Hartford, and it hosted Larson’s campaign kickoff in September.
Other major unions with political influence so far have stayed on the sidelines, including the state’s largest labor federation, the Connecticut AFL-CIO.
All four Democrats in the 1st District quickly returned the AFL-CIO questionnaires that recently became available. Only candidates that complete the questionnaires will be interviewed for endorsements at the AFL-CIO convention on June 25 and 26.
Winning an endorsement requires a two-thirds vote.
