Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Ahsha Safaí. Read earlier dispatches here.
Some 50 union members gathered at Duboce Park early Saturday morning to rally for Ahsha Safaí’s run for mayor.
Safaí, the District 11 supervisor and mayoral candidate, worked as political director for SEIU Local 87, representing janitors, for eight years from 2008 to 2016 — the only major candidate with a labor background.
On Saturday, he announced three union endorsements: SEIU Local 87 (little surprise), the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 and Local 648.
With the background sounds of Muni trains passing on Duboce Avenue and dogs running around catching balls on their morning walks, union leaders representing supermarket workers, educators, stationary engineers and janitors gave speeches on how Safaí earned their support.
“At the peak of the pandemic, I didn’t have to call Ahsha,” recalled Jim Araby, the organizing director of UFCW Local 5. “Ahsha called me, and he said, ‘What can we do to make things better for your members?’”
“This is the type of person that we need in the city of San Francisco, who wakes up every day and doesn’t think about what their next job is,” Araby continued. “But think about, ‘What I can do, every single day, for working people?’ because I know all of us think about that every single day.”
Leading up to the election, Safaí has received a fair share of labor backing: The San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, representing 32 trade unions, endorsed both Safaí and Mark Farrell as first-place picks; the United Educators of San Francisco endorsed Safaí and Aaron Peskin; National Union of Healthcare Workers and Unite Here Local 2 both endorsed Peskin first, and Safaí second.
But there are also gaps in the roster of unions that stand behind Safaí: San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798 sole-endorsed Farrell, and SEIU 1021, the city’s largest union, sole-endorsed Peskin. The police union has gone in for Mayor London Breed.
That SEIU endorsement accrued to Peskin, even though Safaí is working with the union on Prop. I, a ballot measure to improve recruitment and retention of unionized 911 operators and nurses by bolstering their pension benefits.
“We always talk about, what if one of us ran for office? Would we all rally around that person? Will we make sure that the everyday working person’s voice would get heard in the halls of power?” asked Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council.
And the answer, from the labor leaders and supporters at Saturday’s rally, was a yes.
“We stand with you. We’ve been with you. We will continue to be with you,” said Olga Miranda, the president of Local 87 and one of Safaí’s most passionate supporters. “And please don’t ever forget where the fuck you came from, alright?”
Safaí’s labor record
For Cassondra Curiel, the president of United Educators of San Francisco, one of the most concrete examples of Safaí’s work was to secure a stipend for paraeducators, who often struggle over the summer break and have to either save up during the school year or work multiple summer jobs to get by. The stipends were approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2023, and about 1,600 paraeducators were eligible to receive them.
The citywide Project Labor Agreement was the first thing that came to mind for Larry Mazzola, President of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council.
Introduced by then-Supervisor Farrell in 2017, the ordinance passed in 2019. Under the agreement, contractors are required to adopt collective bargaining agreements of various trade unions when bidding on projects under the San Francisco Department of Public Works and the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.
“After we were in negotiations, Ahsha took it upon himself, and interjected himself into the negotiations. He took the lead,” said Mazzola. “Without him, I feel the project would never have happened.”
In the final legislation, smaller, local contractors, who were concerned that the agreement would price them out, were exempted unless the project costs exceeded $5 million, a compromise that Safaí said he helped to engineer.
“He really helped bridge the gap in those talks,” said Gonzalez. “He has a temperament and a set of skills as a negotiator that are often overlooked in a candidate. The ability to bring people together, make sure they are not just heard but feel respected, and then move people to a solution-based conversation.”
“Whenever something comes up that’s controversial, he calls us and sits down with us,” Mazzola agreed.
The trade unions have been unsatisfied with Mayor Breed, especially regarding her support for using modular housing. “I want them to support local workers and not shift jobs out of town like the current mayor is doing,” Mazzola said.
The Building Construction Trades Council endorsed both Safaí and Farrell for mayor in June. “They both fill the bill,” Mazzola said. “More than anything, we want people to sit down with us and invite us to the conversation.”
Controversy
If elected, Safaí told the San Francisco Chronicle last year, he will appoint a “high-ranking staff member” with expertise in labor issues as part of an effort to make sure unions felt they are “part of the decision-making process.”
But his close tie with labor leaders had also drawn scrutiny earlier in his term.
In 2017, his freshman year as supervisor, Safaí faced criticism when he and then-Board of Supervisors President Breed tried to appoint Miranda, the Local 87 president, to the Police Commission.
At the time, Miranda faced doubts about her fitness to serve as a police commissioner due to her fiery temperament; she allegedly assaulted a colleague during a meeting in 2016, the San Francisco Examiner reported. Miranda withdrew her application in June 2017, when it became clear that the necessary votes weren’t there after then-Supervisor Jeff Sheehy withdrew his support for her.
“They thought I was making it personal and political, and I wasn’t. I just wanted a new voice,” Safaí said. “If she wasn’t qualified or she wasn’t someone that was able to do the job, I would have been the first one to tell her that.”
The weight of labor support
It’s an election year, and big money has poured into the races. About $33.85 million has been raised as of Sept. 6, according to local filings, with most going into ballot measures and the mayoral race.
Earlier this week, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and former mayor of New York City, donated $1 million to the PAC supporting Mayor London Breed’s reelection.
Campaign finance filings between Aug. 7 and Aug. 28 show that Daniel Lurie gave $1.5 million to his campaign. Discounting Lurie’s self-financing, the bulk of the donations over $1,000 came from the tech or finance industries, while those from unions only made up 8 percent of the grand total.
It’s “disheartening” that the wealthiest people in the city are trying to buy the mayor’s race, said Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. “We have all these laws on the books to make it a fair playing field so everyday people can run, but the rich people always find ways around the laws.”
“We are not rolling in the political dough. That’s not where our money goes,” said Curiel from the teachers union. “Our endorsement may not yield a bunch of Hulu ads, but it is a statement of values.”
What unions have is also people power, labor leaders said. Unions will “step up their game” on the races after Labor Day, and the Saturday rally was an example of that.
“You can buy airtime, you can buy mail, you can buy consultants, but you can’t buy the field,” said Gonzalez. “We have boots on the ground to get the message out there. And that’s something that labor is committed to helping [Ahsha] with.”
Safai’s canvassers need to do a better job hanging door placards. They were all over the sidewalk this afternoon.
Door hangers are even more of a waste of paper than the usual mailers.
“The paper company did a study finding them very effective” – sure guy.