More than 20 years ago, when I was first elected to lead the San Francisco Labor Council, the officers of Transport Workers Local 250-A, the Muni drivers, tried to recruit me to sit on the Municipal Transportation Agency Commission: “We need someone strong to represent us!”
“Hell no,” I told them. “I don’t sit on commissions. I yell at them for you. That’spart of my job.”
Don’t get me wrong. The Labor Council’s position was that workers or union members should be appointed to all commissions that affect workers, in the public or private sector. One of the (many) questions on our endorsement questionnaires always reads: “Will you appoint union leaders to serve on commissions?”
It’s the same position we have with elected offices. We’d love for all elected representatives to come from a union background and to understand how government, the economy, and labor in general affects working men and women. And I don’t mean: “Well, my daddy was a Teamster…” (Nationally, campaign trainings and recruitment of union members to run for office has been sporadic.)
Fast forward 20 years: A rare opening occurred on the Public Utilities Commission and the building and construction trades unions decided they wanted me to take that slot. Again, I said “hell, no” and insisted we send the mayor the name of other building trades leaders to promote for that opening. A couple days later, the Mayor’s Office called and said that though they liked these guys they wanted someone with more experience in city government. They wanted me.
So there was a hard push from both the mayor and my union officers. Kicking and screaming, I accepted the appointment. I even signed London Breed’s stupid and illegal pre-resignation letter. (What the fuck…have fun firing me.)
I took my role seriously. It is an honor to serve as commissioner, and I carved out time to become a good one. I went on field trips, read extensively, and interviewed department professionals about all aspects of water, power, and waste management.
The role of a commissioner is not to create new policy (though I did get to promote public power and labor standards) but to be a good steward and democratic watchdog. When I retired, I had more time to be an even better commissioner and write more run-on sentences. I was even elected commission president by my peers, the epitome, I assumed, of San Francisco public service.
Then, out of the blue during, the November 2024 election season, Mayor London Breed called to informed me that my appointment would not be renewed. She essentially fired me.
My replacement was clearly a partisan political supporter, so I decided I needed to go out the same way I came in, screaming and yelling (though not too hard; I love retirement).
Now, disgruntled former Breed staffers have tattled that Breed’s appointment of (now) Supervisor Mark SherrilI, a former staffer with Michael Bloomberg, was decided because she was banking that she might eventually get a job with the financier and former mayor of New York. I doubt this was as bad as Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s outright auctioning off Obama’s vacant Senate seat for a good job, but it smells the same. It exposed the crude side of coalition building.
Let’s be clear: every appointment—from local commissions to a city council and even the United States Senate—is made with political implications. One appoints allies, not rivals. Alan Wong wasn’t appointed D4 supervisor because he fights for affordable housing and taxing the rich.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. An unpopular appointment launched Aaron Peskin’s second run for office. In the days before air flights or long-distance train service, an appointment could be used to get an irritating ally or adversary out of town for months, even years, at a time—a big “promotion” with fanfare and balloons as the newest and most honorable Congressman got shipped safely to the other side of the country.
During my time in office, most mayors honored Labor Council recommendations for commission appointments. Only once did I have to pull out all the stops to save a favored commissioner, Larry Mazzola, Sr, Business Manager of the plumber’s union, who Ed Lee was going to fire. Mazzola was a longtime, respected commissioner and president of the Airport Commission, a large enterprise department that employs, either directly or through its airlines, construction and service vendors, tens of thousands of workers. Larry always stood up for union labor, living wage standards for the vendors, labor peace agreements, etc. But he and Ed Lee were two stubborn souls and the mayor decided not to reappoint him. I sent my usual letter urging his reappointment and when it was ignored I asked for an appointment. And a conference room. I brought 25 labor leaders (excluding Larry) of the San Francisco Labor Council Executive Board: teachers, electricians, firefighters, machinists, teamsters, janitors, city workers, etc.
When the mayor and his staff entered the room, I thanked him and explained that though I write these recommendation letters the folks you see around the table are my bosses. And they’re here with me, representing the San Francisco labor movement, to respectfully ask you to reappoint our esteemed colleague to the Airport Commission. The mayor didn’t flinch, curtly replied, “thanks” and walked out. We read in the Chronicle two days later that the Larry was reappointed. (Larry Mazzola, Sr., R.I.P., died earlier this month.)
Part of the new moderate agenda in San Francisco politics, from the Mayor’s Office to the Board of Supervisors, is based on a combination of merging departments, replacing commissioners and department heads, and eliminating commissions. Mayor Daniel Lurie is appointing more people like Breed’s appointee, Mark Sherrill, business centric folks, not the activist community leaders we prefer to serve on the Board of Supervisors and commissions.
I watch the fights that are starting: The sad division regarding the revenue-generating Prop D, the “overpaid CEO tax,” to restore Trump’s budget cuts, which “moderates” from the mayor to state Sen. Scott Weiner oppose. And then there are the unacceptable moves to fire city employees to balance the budget.
These fights, like all policy fights, demand engagement. And limiting or eliminating commissions and departments is not the answer.
Hannah Arendt, the European (immigrant) philosopher who grew up during the Third Reich, adamantly outlines that her worst observation of the 1930s was the lack of engagement during Hitler’s rise to power. She preaches that a robust, even messy democracy is the only hope to protect workers and stop fascism. Even if it’s just some stupid committee that everyone takes the time to volunteer for once a week.
Despite the elimination of community ambassadors in the Tenderloin, we should still go to the Vietnamese and Thai restaurants. Attend your goofy block parties; join a Local 21 picket line; knock on doors before the June 2 primary; hell, join Tom Ammiano and me at an obscure Sweatshop Free Advisory Committee meeting tucked inside some hidden room at City Hall.
And if you’re kicked off a commission, go somewhere else.
Tim Paulson was the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council and executive secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. (Nothing is this article reflects the any official position of those labor organizations.)
