GILROY
– A longtime union employee who said he was pressured by his
union not to run in November’s City Council race will get an
endorsement by a powerful affiliation of 100 unions in Santa Clara
and San Benito counties after all.
GILROY – A longtime union employee who said he was pressured by his union not to run in November’s City Council race will get an endorsement by a powerful affiliation of 100 unions in Santa Clara and San Benito counties after all.
Bruce Morasca received the South Bay AFL-CIO’s endorsement last week after getting passed over by the group in August when it held candidate interviews in Gilroy. Morasca, a first-time candidate, is a 27-year union veteran and a clerk at Albertsons in Morgan Hill.
Morasca could not be reached for comment before Monday’s deadline, but in an interview in late August he said he was “disappointed” to not get what he described as “a big endorsement.”
At that time, Morasca said he was pressured to pull out of the race by the union. He did not elaborate, but said the union never threatened he would lose his job.
Ron Lind, the secretary-treasurer for Gilroy food and commercial worker union, sat on the committee that made the initial AFL-CIO endorsements. Lind said there were “questions about” whether Morasca was in or out of the race, but he “clearly represents the values we do.”
“We endorse those who will be best for working families,” Lind said.
Other candidates endorsed by the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations) are: mayoral candidate Lupe Arellano and City Council hopefuls Peter Arellano, Paul Correa and Mark Dover.
Gilroy has three vacant City Council seats in the November election, meaning one of the candidates endorsed by the union will not be victorious. Historically, AFL-CIO endorsements have not made or broken campaigns, but with seven candidates – two of them are incumbents – vying for three spots, any edge is helpful.
A disagreement over the candidate endorsements is causing a rift between the AFL-CIO and some of its members.
The Gilroy Firefighters Association, a member of the AFL-CIO, is rejecting the AFL-CIO endorsements and announced it will make its own endorsements for the Gilroy City Council and mayoral November elections.
“The problem is they don’t listen to us and they have their own agenda,” said Art Amaro, president of the Gilroy Fire Fighters Union. “We want to endorse people we think are right for the city of Gilroy, but local issues are different than the county’s sometimes.”
Amaro said the local unions and its parent organization have conflicted over candidate endorsements for several years. When county Supervisor Don Gage successfully ran for Gilroy mayor, firefighters and AFL-CIO leaders couldn’t reach a consensus.
“We knew Gage was the best candidate for this city, but they wouldn’t support him just because he was a Republican,” Amaro said.
The local police union will also make its own endorsements based on local interviews the two unions will do jointly. The firefighters and police unions have not yet set a date for the interviews.
