On November 4, 2018, Gordon Mar was elected supervisor in District 4, a surprising change for the Sunset. 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.
In 2018 Gordon’s campaign was endorsed by both the San Francisco Labor Council and the 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 more than 100 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 30 or 40 coffeed-up sprinkler fitters and sheet metal 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.
I was enthralled when Gordon decided to run for office. His twin brother Eric had previously won two close elections to represent the District 1 in Richmond, and many of the same tenant and housing activists from District 1 walked those flat streets on the other side of the park.
A longtime organizer with the Chinese Progressive Association, Gordon in 2014 he was recruited to lead a San Francisco chapter of Jobs with Justice , 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 their strike with no consequences. The National Labor Relations Board, the historic body to enforce labor law, was finally exposed as being useless. The right to strike without being fired (or “replaced”) was solidified by the Reagan Administration and 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-sector unions as well as 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 walked for Gordon.
Then, in 2022, Gordon lost, the first time an elected Supervisor lost his reelection.
The 2018 collaboration had disappeared. In San Francisco without coalitions, you lose.
Fast forward to last month, June 2, 2026, the batshit gubernatorial primary where everybody endorsed everybody and the nice guy who, less than two months earlier was in 8th place and a consistent 5 percent polling, will now be our next governor. Not much to get out of bed for.
And worse, anything that even smelled progressive (or Mayor Daniel Lurie didn’t support) died a clear death. The closest that labor (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 Bill. The measure began polling at almost 70 percent but lost by ten points. Those unions spent almost $2 million and it wasn’t even close.
The only joy for labor on June 2 was that Sup. Connie Chan made the runoff. Though state Sen. Scott Weiner was decisively the winner, he didn’t win 2-1 as predicted, but his 40 percent is a lot closer to Chan’s 30 percent and gives hope to Chan’s chance in November, especially since Nancy Pelosi has officially weighed in and Saikat Chakrabarti, the wealthy progressive, 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 percent 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. Scott’s expansive statewide housing legislation not only eliminates many local standards, but excludes language that the skilled plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, sheet metal (and all skilled construction trades) must receive certified apprenticeship training.
On Chan’s side: The hotel workers and the California Nurses Association and electricians are all in and anchored the labor and community independent expenditure that was started to her get through the primary. Besides retiring Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, that PAC was a big reason her numbers were so much better than predicted.
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 for November.
Except for the usual 15 to 20 ballot measures that folks will like or not like that that dilutes every election cycle (public bank, yaay!!!), the main race labor will focus on after the June setbacks is Connie Chan for Congress.
Tim Paulson has been 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 position of those labor organizations.)
