Philly’s largest municipal union has endorsed Jeff Brown for mayor in a surprise vote

Philadelphia’s largest labor union for city workers has endorsed grocer Jeff Brown for mayor, providing a major boost to the first-time candidate and rankling several other contenders who were caught off guard by the unscheduled vote of the union’s leaders.

The board of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees’ District Council 33, which represents 9,500 blue-collar municipal employees, on Tuesday night voted overwhelmingly to endorse Brown, a first-time candidate whose family owns a chain of ShopRite stores.

Brown received 20 votes, while former City Councilmember Helen Gym received four, according to Ernest Garrett, the union’s president. One board member abstained, and none of the seven other candidates vying for the Democratic nomination received any votes, Garrett said.

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An officer unexpectedly called for the vote during a regular monthly meeting of District Council 33′s board, said Garrett, who added that he was surprised by the move. Garrett declined to say who pushed for the vote.

Garrett said the union invited all of the mayoral candidates to speak before the board except former Councilmember and real estate magnate Allan Domb. Garrett said Domb’s record was not in line with his members’ values.

Although many of the other candidates, as veteran city officials, have more experience with the union, Brown won the board over during the interview process, Garrett said.

“When you talk to Jeff Brown, it’s not like talking to a politician. It’s almost like you fall in love with the words that come out of his mouth,” Garrett said. “It’s the human element that makes you feel comfortable about him. Unfortunately, some politicians, they all start sounding the same.”

DC 33′s endorsement is always an important one, but it may be especially helpful for Brown. As the only candidate who has never held public office, Brown benefits from the legitimacy that comes with being the favored candidate of the largest of the city’s four municipal unions.

And as a wealthy business owner, Brown can use the support of DC 33, which represents the lowest-paid city employees, as a shield against accusations that he will be insensitive to the needs of workers.

In an interview, Brown noted that his grocery stores are unionized and said he believes a successful mayor needs to look past the antagonism that often comes with the manager-worker relationship.

“There are actually are ways where both sides can win if you trust each other and work together,” Brown said. “There’s an incredible amount of opportunities for us to do a better job together, and for our members to do better and our citizens to do better.”

Brown gave examples of how responding to unions’ concerns can avoid penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions, such as making workplaces more safe to cut down on worker’s comp claims and spending less on overtime by boosting pay to attract applicants for the thousands of vacancies the city is struggling to fill.

He sounded less eager to be generous on retirement benefits due to projections showing the city pension fund is only about 60% funded.

“That’s a crisis,” Brown said. “We’re going to have to work on that. I don’t have a magic bullet for that.”

In past mayoral elections, former District Council 33 president Herman “Pete” Matthews, who led the union for decades until Garrett ousted him in 2020, unilaterally decided whom the union endorsed. Garrett said he wanted to let the board decide and stayed neutral as it debated the candidates.

Garrett said he is now eager to campaign for Brown, but was nonetheless surprised by the level of support he had amassed among the union’s board members, noting mayoral candidate Rebecca Rhynhart worked well with the union when she was city controller and that Gym “has been a friend to District Council 33.”

But in closed-door deliberations, Gym was backed by a member of the board who did not have credibility with the other members, a factor, Garrett said, “played a role in why Brown was more successful than Gym.”

Gym, a champion of the city’s progressive movement, said city workers “will always be at the heart of my campaign.”

“I will always work with and for the people who make this city run,” she said in a statement after the vote. “I’m fighting for their kids, for safer communities, and a leadership who respects what they do.”

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A source close to Rhynhart said the campaign was caught off-guard by the timing of the endorsement. She’d interviewed with the union in November and was under the impression she’d have another chance to speak to members in February before a vote took place.

Domb said that he believes he was excluded from the union’s interview process because he has proposed reforming the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, a controversial program that allows retiring city employees to begin accruing pension benefits four years before they retire while still collecting their salaries.

“I’ll stand with Philadelphia taxpayers no matter what, even if the leaders of groups choose not to meet with me because of it,” Domb said in a statement. “I’m not afraid to have a different position than the other candidates for mayor when it comes to reforming DROP and saving money for taxpayers.”

Garrett defended the board’s decision, saying its member had made up their minds after hearing from the candidates in late 2022.

“This process that was done was a fair process,” Garrett said. “I allowed them an opportunity to speak to the board.”

Brown has been courting DC 33 for a long time, and even gave their members 5% discounts at his ShopRites during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the union’s members were working long hours in difficult conditions.

Brown said the discounts were unrelated to his mayoral campaign and noted that he has offered similar deals to unions for retail clerks, hospital workers, and the Transport Workers Union Local 234, which has also endorsed his mayoral campaign.

“A lot of DC 33 members shop in my stores, they live in neighborhoods where I have stores, and we’ve had a long relationship, and I wanted to do it,” he said. “But they’re not the only ones. I do it with a whole bunch of unions.”

Labor unions play a major role in Philadelphia elections, and several are preparing to make endorsements in the coming weeks.

Members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers heard candidates speak at a forum on Tuesday and will vote over the course of the next week, said Hillary Linardopoulos, the PFT’s political liaison.

She said members could vote for any candidate, or make no endorsement. Gym, a longtime public education advocate, is considered a favorite.

The unions that represent police and firefighters will likely wait to endorse until later in the cycle. A spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 said the union hasn’t yet set a timeline. And Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters is scheduling interviews with candidates through February and March, president Mike Bresnan said.

AFSCME’s District Council 47, which represents the city’s white-collar workers, did not respond to a request for comment on its endorsement plans.

The politically potent coalition of building trades unions also has yet to make an endorsement. Ryan Boyer, the head of the the Building and Construction Trades Council, has a close relationship with Cherelle Parker, the former Council member now running for mayor. But it remains to be seen whether the more than 50 locals that make up the council will coalesce around one candidate.

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One member of the council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, has for years been one the most powerful political forces in Pennsylvania thanks to millions of dollars in campaign spending.

But the union was rocked by a federal corruption case that has seen its former leader, John J. Dougherty, convicted of bribery, and several others indicted on an array of charges. Dougherty, known as “Johnny Doc,” has maintained his innocence.

The union last month made contributions to mayoral candidates Gym, Parker, and Rhynhart, according to campaign finance disclosures filed this week.

Mark Lynch Jr., the union’s business manager, said in a statement that Local 98 is working with the Building Trades Council “in determining what will hopefully be labor’s consensus mayoral candidate.”