Unions ask Conn. Democrats to stop using strategists
A union leader has asked state Democrats to cease using political consulting giant Global Strategy Group, claiming its work for Amazon amounted to union-busting.
“Anti-unionism and anti-union enablers have no place in today's Democratic Party” SEIU CT State Council Director Rick Melita said of Amazon in an email this week to Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.
Citing a report on CNBC, Melita wrote that Global Strategy Group “monitored the social media accounts of Amazon Labor Union organizers and produced anti-union propaganda, using Connecticut GSG employees.”
“National unions, including SEIU, have severed all business dealings with Global Strategies Group,” Melita wrote to DiNardo. “I would hope the Connecticut Democratic Party does the same. I urge the party to remove individuals who maintain ties to virulently anti-union companies like Amazon from leadership positions. Further, the party should inform candidates seeking the Democratic nominations to sever all links to Global Strategies Group and to refrain from using them as consultants in the future.”
Global Strategy Group has been a longtime contractor for Democratic campaigns, listing among its clients President Joe Biden and Sens. Joe Manchin, Ed Markey, Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, among others, according to reports.
In his most recent campaign filing, Gov. Ned Lamont reported paying about $159,000 to the New York-based Global Strategy Group for polling.
In an emailed statement, Global Strategy Group apologized for its work with Amazon.
“While there have been factual inaccuracies in reports about our work for Amazon, being involved in any way was a mistake,” the company said. “We have resigned that work, and we are deeply sorry. As we move forward, we are committed to supporting the rights of workers to organize.”
A spokesman for Lamont referred all comments to the state Democratic Party. DiNardo did not make a commitment to end ties with Global Strategy Group. She responded Friday to Melita by saying she is “a former longtime member of the Bridgeport Education Association, the Connecticut Education Association and was also a member
of the Office & Professional Employees International Union for a short time.”
“Labor has been a critical partner for the Connecticut Democrats,” DiNardo wrote to Melita. “On behalf of the Connecticut Democrats, I look forward to continuing to work with candidates and supporters who embrace the core issues of the Democratic Party and who defend the right of workers to organize and to collectively bargain.”
Melita, though, said during an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media that Democrats would have to choose whether or not they want to be “on the side of people who build their own personal rocket ships,” a reference to Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos.
“This type of duress is really unacceptable if you want to participate in Democratic Party,” he said. “You gotta pick which side you are on.”
Earlier in April, the Democratic National Committee announced that it was discussing banning any of its contractors from engaging in anti-union activity.
“We appreciate the Democratic Party committees' decision to amend their contract and RFP processes in light of reporting that GSG had been working for Amazon as they sought to defeat the recent organizing drive,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement to Politico.
Global Strategy Group said those standards would “prohibit companies, like ours, that work for Democratic Party candidates and organizations, from doing work that opposes workers' efforts to organize. This also includes working on campaigns or as part of coalitions that seek to categorize workers in ways that make it harder for them to organize or qualify for benefits.”
“We agree to these new standards and will be incorporating them into our client contracts,” the company said in a statement.