Valdez Nets UAW and Mamdani Backing as Labor and Socialist Paths Cross in Brooklyn

The attempt by Claire Valdez to unite the socialist left and labor unions in New York City could reshape the city’s political balance—and the nature of progressive politics nationwide.

To witness New York’s mayor embrace both a union firebrand and a Democratic Socialist in the same breath would have, only recently, seemed a flight of fancy. Yet, on January 9th, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Claire Valdez, a state assembly member and self-described socialist, to endorse her nascent bid for Congress. Valdez’s campaign, officially announced just a day before, thus opened with a tableau as arresting as it was improbable: a united front, at least for one news cycle, between organized labor’s old guard and the city’s ascendant socialist left.

Valdez, a former UAW Local 2110 leader who cut her teeth organizing clerical workers at Columbia University, is bidding to represent New York’s 7th Congressional District, a seat soon to be vacated by Nydia Velázquez after 33 years. She is not merely touting labor credentials; her campaign platform, ranging from the federal PRO Act to a housing public option and Medicare for All, offers a policy menu familiar to devotees of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The core innovation—if it can be called that—is Valdez’s pitch to marshal labor and leftists under a single pro-worker, pro-social-spending banner.

Whether this entente delivers more than rousing press conferences is an open question. The contest is undeniably crowded: Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president and a progressive who has already secured public support from officials like Jumaane Williams, is widely anticipated to be Velázquez’s own choice. If Valdez seeks to differentiate herself, it likely rests on her organizing pedigree—the only major candidate with genuine union roots.

The implications for New York City’s body politic are hardly trivial. Unions remain one of the city’s more reliable, if fractious, political machines. Endorsements from big players such as District Council 37, 1199SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the United Federation of Teachers carry outsized sway in close primaries. That the UAW has broken early for Valdez could embolden smaller units to follow suit. Yet the city’s largest unions, entrenched and pragmatic, often opt for candidates pledging incremental gains rather than radical restructurings of the social contract.

Valdez hopes to break the mould. By yoking her socialist vision to bread-and-butter union appeals, she aspires to present a “transformational” alternative—a candidate who speaks to a restive Democratic Party internally riven after disappointing national cycles. If she builds a broad-enough coalition, Valdez could portend a left-labor alliance robust enough to tilt future races.

The risks for New Yorkers, and for the socialist project itself, are significant. City labor giants, after all, harbour suspicions about socialism’s constitutional antagonism to private enterprise (and, by extension, member jobs). Meanwhile, socialists have often dismissed labor’s leadership as too accommodating. Actual governing—allocating NYCHA funding, or negotiating with federal authorities on housing or healthcare—serves up more trade-offs than either side is ever eager to admit.

For city-dwellers, stakes are not purely academic. New York’s housing woes remain acute: nearly half of renters spend more than 30% of income on shelter, a metric that has nudged upwards despite copious policy pronouncements. The HOMES Act’s public option may delight activists, but the capital investment required to move the needle—likely tens of billions—would demand federal buy-in and a grasp of fiscal constraint. Medicare for All encounters a similar conundrum: local advocacy seldom translates into national legislative traction.

Against this background, Valdez’s claim to the Ocasio-Cortez mantle deserves scepticism. The city’s last “movement” candidate, after all, captured national attention before being subsumed by the machinery of Congress. If Valdez wins, she would face a bruising Washington learning curve, and be pressed to choose between purity and pragmatism.

Labor’s shifting allegiances, socialism’s new suit

The coalition-building experiment underway in New York is hardly unique. Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, himself a product of teachers’ union politicking, recently parlayed labor-socialist alliances into City Hall, yet battles persistent budget gaps and fractious city council dynamics. Across Europe, attempts to weld leftist parties to trade unions have met with mixed results: tight during moments of crisis, frayed under the daily grind of governing. Britain’s Labour Party, witness its Blair-era dalliance with centrism and later leftward swerve under Corbyn, offers a template for the perils and promise of such coalitions.

Measured globally, New York’s experiment remains small-bore but suggestive. If Valdez prevails—especially if she can secure commitments from the city’s major unions—the signal could ripple nationally. The Democratic Socialists of America, scenting a moment, have been eyeing more city seats for 2026. Though New York’s electorate remains only tepidly socialist, recent years have seen left-leaning candidates outperform the city’s more staid Democrats in concentrated pockets, not least in Queens and Brooklyn. The caveat: legislative grids and fiscal geometry, not messaging alone, determine political outcomes.

The data are, as always, sobering. Union density in New York—already among the nation’s highest—hovers at 21.6%, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, down from historical highs. Meanwhile, DSA-backed candidates, while increasingly visible, still only number a handful in city and state chambers. For those seeking a sea change, these are puny returns.

Still, it is the vivacity of the coalition being tested that merits attention. Valdez, aflame with causes, may bring marginalised constituencies into sharper focus. If she secures labor’s allegiance without alienating institutional Democrats, the city’s leftward tilt could accelerate, providing a road map or a warning, depending on one’s ideological lens. For Republicans, none of whom matter in this district, the spectacle is moot. For Democrats, hungry for a winning formula, the stakes are existential.

Yet if history serves, New York has a knack for tempering ideological fervour with operational necessity. Uniting organized labor with socialist politics may provide an electoral pop. Whether it endures—amid the city’s punishing rent rolls, byzantine regulatory frameworks, and the infinite flexibility of political self-interest—remains to be seen. In the American context, at least, the marriage of labor and the socialist left has rarely proved comfortable or lasting. One expects it will not be boring. ■