Whether outside the 72nd Street and Broadway subway station in the morning, working East Harlem in the afternoon, handing out fliers together for Bill de Blasio and Melinda Katz at the Staten Island ferry terminal at rush hour, or being shuttled off by van or subway ride to other parts of the city, the ragtag group of mostly young African-American men and women being led by mostly white organizers on Primary Day did their best to have an impact on the elections.
And with nearly every Working Families Party (WFP) candidate
winning on Tuesday—the exceptions being Lynn Schulman and S.J. Jung for Council
in Queens, and Richard Aborn for Manhattan district attorney—they seem to have
succeeded. The news for the WFP could very well get better after the run-offs,
given the strength that both comptroller candidate John Liu and public advocate
candidate de Blasio demonstrated in the primary and the near-certainty of even
lower turnout on Sept. 29.
For all the candidates the WFP backed and that its secretive private company, Data and Field Services, performed services for, though, party leaders never made a secret that de Blasio was their overwhelming priority, even as several other campaigns grumbled that they were being left without help.
And indeed, de Blasio was the candidate whose palm cards every worker coming out of the Working Families Party headquarters was loaded down with on Tuesday afternoon.
But when asked why they were working for de Blasio or the candidates on the other side of some palm cards, like Richard Aborn, the workers were largely stumped.
“He’ll get between black people and the police,” said one woman handing out palm cards for de Blasio in the morning on the Upper West Side, grasping for an answer, and proceeding, like many of her fellow workers to try answering the question by reading off the list of his endorsements on the paper she was holding.
But she was proud to be working for the Working Families Party, she said, recalling a day about 10 years ago when she went with her father into the voting booth and asked what Working Families meant on the ballot line and being told, “That’s us.”
She had been hired for the day, but was holding out hope that she might get an offer extended to come on long term with the Working Families Party (she said she had never heard of Data and Field Services). She had been told to expect word on that within two weeks.
Between spins as she shoved de Blasio/Aborn palm cards into the hands of commuters and shouting “Vote today! Vote today,” another Working Families worker on the other side of the 72nd Street subway stop said she had been with the party for a year and a half. The woman, who identified herself as “Shevan,” but declined to spell her name, said when asked about de Blasio that in fact, voting for him on the Upper West Side was impossible, because “this guy is from Queens, actually.” She struggled to find the line identifying which office de Blasio was seeking, and directed attention to the Aborn side of the material, reading off his endorsements.
The same went for the man standing outside of Fairway a little further up Broadway. Asked why he was supporting Aborn, the man looked at the cards in his hand for what appeared to be the first time and read off what appeared next to the candidate’s photograph.
“I’m just learning about him today,” the man explained.
He also had never heard of Data and Field Services.
Tuesday afternoon, in a huddle across the street from the WFP headquarters at 2 Nevins Street with six workers and another organizer, a group leader named Matt did a fast run-through of the plans. The workers began to look over the palm cards as he spoke, with one woman paying special attention to de Blasio’s smiling photograph, particularly the facial hair.
Matt laughed.
“That’s the ‘BdB-goatee,’” he said.
Explaining that he expected de Blasio to be in the run-off with Mark Green, Matt added, “if he’s in the run-off, all of us at the WFP will be growing one.”
The joke did not go over well, with either the group he was leading or his fellow organizer.
“That’s my idea, at least,” Matt said.
And then the group headed to the 4 train, Matt explained, to switch at 86th Street in Manhattan and then fan out after arriving at the 116th Street subway stop.
Several minutes later, another group emerged from 2 Nevins Street, this one headed to the DeKalb Avenue train station a few blocks up Flatbush Avenue. The young woman with a backpack stuffed with de Blasio literature chatted amicably with the older workers she had with her, making small talk as they walked.
The next group of workers to exit the building had a longer walk ahead of them, being dragged through the heat past a Hare Krishna spiritual center to a white van parked several blocks down the street. As they walked, several of the young girls traded barbs with each other, falling behind the rest. But as they reached the van, they all got quiet while the group leader explained the rules.
He would be dropping them off at various locations, he said, and then coming back to check on them. If they were not at the sites when he came around, then they would not get paid. If they were doing something other than handing out material as they were supposed to, they would get one warning, and after that, they could either make their own way home or he would drive them back to where they started.
He repeated this, stressing how firm the rule was.
“One warning,” he said, “and that’s it.”
