On November 4, 2018, Gordon Mar was elected Supervisor of San Francisco’s District 4, a surprising change for the Sunset district. Gordon’s election was decisive and signaled that progressives can be elected anywhere in San Francisco if a coalition of labor and community organizations coalesce and mobilize around a candidate who represents not the just bread and butter issues of safety and taxes, but issues that include affordable housing, labor rights, and immigrant justice. Even in a district like the Sunset, a bastion of single-family homeownership (from the postwar Irish to a newer Chinese influx) who have historically paid more attention to development and law and order than the broader issues that those downtown socialists were always trying to shove down their throat….

In 2018 Gordon’s campaign was endorsed by both the San Francisco Labor Council andthe Building Trades Council. Along with District 4 leaders and the rest of immigrant housing and worker organizations that mobilize volunteers, the 2018 fall campaign was an exciting bustle of activity. I remember one crazy Saturday as we were dispatching over one hundred teams of volunteers to walk precincts, Gordon’s campaign team suddenly stopped so that they could waste time on a goddam photo shoot (a nice one!…) The thirty or forty coffee’d up sprinkler-fitters and sheetmetal apprentices who’d volunteered to drive out to the beach on their day off were pissed. Let’s get the fuck going! It was a good irritation to have. And every weekend one would watch the Local 38 Plumbers cable car, packed with volunteers, loud music and Gordon Mar signs rolling down Taraval and Noriega.

Gordon Mar was the type of candidate a progressive labor organizer gets wet dreams over. I was enthralled when he decided to run for office. His twin brother Eric had previously won two close elections to represent District 1 in the Richmond and many of the same tenant and housing activists from District 1 walked those flat streets on the other side of the Park. 

Longtime organizer with the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), in 2014 he was recruited to lead a San Francisco chapter of Jobs with Justice (JwJ), the national labor and community organization formed by the AFL-CIO during the Reagan years. After the PATCO strike when replacement workers (scabs) were legally allowed to break the strike with no consequences the National Labor Relations Board was finally exposed as being useless. The right to strike without being fired/replaced was solidified by the Reagan Administration. A few national unions decided to form a parallel organization, city by city, which would include unions and activist community organizations like, say, the NAACP in Hartford.

The San Francisco chapter includes the nurses, hotel workers, teachers, public workers’ unions and progressive and faith based organizations such as the Chinese Progressive Association, Day Laborer and Domestic Workers Alliance, South of Market Community Action Network, and Coleman Advocates. They all volunteered to walk for Gordon.

In 2022 the 2018 collaboration had disappeared. Gordon lost, the first time an elected Supervisor lost his reelection. In San Francisco without coalitions, you lose.

Fast forward to June 2, 2026, the batshit gubernatorial primary where everybody endorsed everybody and the nice guy who, less than two months earlier was in 8^th place and a consistent 5% polling, will now be our next governor.  Not much to get out of bed for.

And worse, anything that even smelled progressive (or Mayor Lurie didn’t support) died a clear death. The closest that labor, (and mostly the two biggest city employee unions) came to coalescing around anything was Measure D, the overpaid CEO tax to raise $200 million citywide to replace Trump’s cuts from the Big Beautiful Big. The measure began polling at almost 70% but lost by ten points. Those unions spent almost two million dollars and it wasn’t even close.

The only joy on June 2^nd was that Connie Chan made the runoff.  Though Scott Weiner was decisively the winner, he didn’t win 2-1 as predicted. His 40% is a lot closer to Chan’s 30% and gives hope to Chan’s chance in November, especially since Nancy Pelosi has officially weighed in and Saikot Chakrabarti, the wealthy “progressive” carpetbagger, has already instructed and paid his campaign staff to stay on and continue his PAC to work for Chan.

Besides the San Francisco Labor Council and the Building Trades Council’s official endorsements there are large, organizing unions who will continue to support Scott Weiner: Carpenters, Laborers, Operating Engineers, United Food and Commercial Workers, National Union of Health Care Workers, SEIU Local 87 janitors. (Years ago Scott had a 100% union legislative scorecard.)

Scott has also earned the statewide endorsement of the California Democratic party. And in San Francisco as we know, our local DCCC, is stacked with anti-progressives. 

And then there’s a big subset of unions who wouldn’t necessarily support a progressive like Chan but hate Weiner enough that she earned their endorsements. Without boring you with the details, it’s mostly the building trades who have legitimate concerns for their PG&E members who have health care and pension benefits that would be severely altered with a new (City) employer – (Weiner has ramped up his PG&E bashing), and then there is Scott’s expansive statewide housing legislation which not only eliminates many local standards, but excludes language that the skilled plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, sheet metal (and all skilled construction trades) that requires workers to receive any certified apprenticeship training!  Major good gripes that ignore labor concerns.

On Chan’s side: The hotel workers and the California Nurses and electricians are all in and anchored the labor and community independent expenditure that was started to her get through the primary. Besides Pelosi, that PAC was a big reason her numbers were so much better than predicted.

In addition the biggest statewide unions, SEIU, had endorsed both Scott and Connie, but mid-campaign, they rescinded their dual endorsement when Scott came out and opposed Prop D, the CEO tax. They are now free to dedicate their resources for Chan only.  Even IFPTE Local 21, who spent considerable time and money on Prop D, could go all-in for Chan in for November.

So…. those who were distracted in June now have an opportunity to make history. Except for the usual fifteen to twenty ballot measures that folks will like or not like that that dilutes every election cycle – (public bank, yaay!!!) – the only thing of substance to salvage for labor and progressives after the June disaster is the once-in-a-generation replacement for San Francisco’s only seat in Congress. Seems like a big deal. I’d say it’s worth a shot.

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