The City Wouldn’t Exist Without Union Workers. Our Solidarity Is Crucial in This Moment.
May Day this year reminded us of something the powerful are always trying to make working people forget: Nothing moves without us.
Not the airports. Not the office towers. Not the hospitals. Not the hotels. Not the cranes. Not the ports. Not the City itself.
On May Day, I was asked to participate in an act of civil disobedience at SFO in support of union workers struggling to secure a fair contract.
A lot of people might not realize it, but the old window washers’ union, Local 1877, is still proudly affiliated with this council via SEIU–USWW. Through all the changes in the labor movement and the economy, the window washers stayed with the house of labor. They’ve remained loyal affiliates to this council, and we have always encouraged the use of their union contractors throughout San Francisco buildings.
So, when they called, labor answered. I’m proud we did. What followed was fellow labor leaders, elected officials, and community allies stepping into the street together and getting arrested in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience.
“Our fight is serious, and we are willing to sacrifice for what we believe in.”
Some people look at actions like that and think they’re symbolic. They are. But symbols matter in movements — especially those built by working people who historically were told to stay quiet, stay grateful, and stay in line.
Civil disobedience has a long history in this country. It connects the labor movement to the civil rights movement and every other struggle in which ordinary people decided they had no choice but to confront injustice directly. When workers put their bodies on the line — just as they would on a picket line — it sends a message that our fight is serious and that we are willing to sacrifice for what we believe in.
Too often today, sacrifice is expected only from working people. Workers are expected to forego wages, benefits, pensions, healthcare, safety, time with family, and sometimes even their dignity just to keep industries profitable. But when workers organize and ask corporations to sacrifice even a fraction of their excess profits, we’re immediately told our demands are unreasonable.
I reject that entirely.
Everybody has a role to play in this movement. Not everybody gets arrested. Not everybody walks a picket line. But whether you marched down Market Street, honored a boycott, showed up at a rally, signed a petition, talked union with a coworker, or voted for candidates who support labor, your participation matters. The struggle for workers’ rights requires all of us, and right now it requires more solidarity than ever.
That’s because the truth is that the attacks on working people have not stopped. They’ve evolved.
We see it when billion-dollar corporations drag out contract negotiations while workers struggle to pay rent. We see it when non-union special interest groups and their bought-and-paid-for politicians in Sacramento try to carve out exemptions to labor standards that generations of union members fought to establish. We see it when prevailing wage, apprenticeship requirements, and project labor agreements suddenly become “negotiable” the moment politically connected interests decide workers’ protections are inconvenient to their business model. And we certainly see it when people who have never worn a hard hat, climbed scaffolding, dug a trench, or carried tools onto a jobsite suddenly think it’s their place to lecture tradespeople about economics.
Working people are not the problem in this city. In fact, working people are the only reason this city still functions at all.
Multiple Bay Area Union Members from the trades and beyond gathered at SFO this May Day to join a protest that resulted in multiple arrests. Roofers and Waterproofers Local 40 Business Manager Peter Lang (far right) was one of many who showed up in support.
That spirit of solidarity and sacrifice also reminds us that the rights and standards we defend today did not simply appear overnight. They were built over generations by labor leaders willing to fight for every inch of progress. This month, our movement lost one of those giants with the passing of Brother Larry Mazzola Sr.
For many of us in the building trades, Larry was larger than life. A native son of San Francisco, he dedicated nearly 50 years of his life to U.A. Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 38 and the labor movement. Organizer, business agent, business manager, financial secretary–treasurer, airport commissioner — he held all of these titles.
But titles tell only part of the story. What really defined Larry was his relentless defense of working people and union standards.
I was lucky to get to be in the room with him when I represented my teamsters local on the executive committee of the SF Labor Council. I probably didn’t realize at the time how lucky I was to see such titans of labor negotiate with one another, grill politicians, and maneuver internal and external disagreements. Larry taught many of us lessons that are becoming increasingly rare in public life: Loyalty matters, persistence matters, and principles matter. These principles are more important than ever when the odds are stacked against you.
Larry left Local 38 better than he found it. He left the SF Building Trades Council better than he found it. He left the SF Labor Council better than he found it. That is the highest compliment anybody in this movement can receive.
Now that I sit in my current position for the trades, I can see just how deep Larry’s fingerprints still are on this city. Even today, we have apprentices and journeymen going to work under project labor agreements carrying his signature.
Think about that for a second. PLAs negotiated years ago are still feeding families today, still funding healthcare, still supporting retirements, and still creating pathways into the middle class. That is real leadership.
Leadership isn’t about press conferences. It isn’t about social media. It isn’t about carefully tested political slogans. Real leadership means workers are still benefiting from your fight long after you’re gone.
Even Larry’s enemies respected him because they knew exactly where he stood. I never personally saw him pick a fight just to pick one, though I’m sure it happened over the years. What I definitely saw was him rushing to defend Local 38 members and all building trades workers the moment our standards came under attack. If there was even the slightest attempt to lower wages, undermine apprenticeship programs, weaken union labor, or cut corners on workers, Larry was coming.
That matters because too many people today want the rewards of union standards without wanting unions themselves. They want the skilled workforce, the quality construction, the trained apprentices, the safe jobsites, and the economic output.
What they don’t want is the labor movement that made all of that possible.
Larry understood something fundamental: Standards do not defend themselves. Somebody has to fight for them every single day. Now, that responsibility falls to us.
I joke sometimes about the elusive bird of San Francisco: the crane. Anytime you see one, good union jobs are nearby.
Thankfully, we’ve spotted a few more since the last edition of this newspaper — including the massive Bigge crane now standing at the Potrero Power Station project.
To most people, it’s just another piece of equipment. To us, it stands for hope. It means apprentices are getting dispatched, healthcare is getting hours, and pensions are being funded. It means families are breathing a little easier.
This bird should not be such a rare sight in San Francisco. We are now more than three years into a construction recession, and I’m not satisfied with the pace of recovery. Nobody in public office should be satisfied either.
Construction isn’t some niche industry in San Francisco. Construction drives economic activity throughout the City. Our projects fund public services through fees and taxes. They sustain small businesses and create middle-class careers without saddling workers with massive student debt.
Most importantly, the people who do the construction work are human beings with families depending on them.
I know too many skilled tradespeople sitting on the bench right now who are hungry for work. Men and women who spent years mastering their craft are now stressing over rent, mortgages, groceries, and maintaining healthcare for their families. That should be treated like the emergency it is.
Politicians must spend less time thinking about their next campaign and more time thinking about the people who actually build and maintain this city.
Our members aren’t statistics. They aren’t talking points. They are the only reason San Francisco exists in physical form.
My colleagues around the Bay Area and across California often joke about how easy labor must have it in San Francisco because the City is overwhelmingly Democratic. Anybody who’s on the ground here knows better.
San Francisco has always attracted enormous wealth and political influence. Labor has had to fight for every inch of progress that we’ve won in this city.
Plenty of people call themselves Democrats, but far fewer consistently stand with working-class values when it costs them something politically. Even prevailing wage laws — basic labor protections that should be unquestioned in a union city — somehow become “complicated” depending on which workers are involved or which politically connected nonprofit wants an exemption. That should embarrass people.
San Francisco is supposed to set the high-water mark for labor standards in this country. California follows San Francisco in many ways, and the rest of the nation watches California. If we lower standards here, we undermine efforts everywhere else to raise standards for working people.
Our union members understand what’s at stake in every election. That’s why local unions will continue to make endorsements through one very simple lens: which candidates will fight for workers and protect union jobs — full stop.
We won’t be wooed by who has the best branding or the best polling, and we won’t be swayed by who gives the nicest speeches.
What we need is politicians who will fight for working people when the pressure comes, because the pressure always comes.
The labor movement wasn’t built through comfort. It was built through solidarity, struggle, and sacrifice. Every decent wage, every healthcare plan, every pension, every apprenticeship opportunity, every safety rule, and every PLA exists because somebody before us was willing to fight for it.
People like Larry Mazzola Sr. fought for it. People like the workers arrested at SFO fought for it. People like the union members who show up every single day right now despite uncertainty, layoffs, and economic anxiety are fighting for it. That’s the thread connecting all of this.
Solidarity is not nostalgia. It is survival.