I don't usually like to play the endorsement game, because I don't want to feel obligated to report every endorsement, and there's an awful lot of them. But this one is fairly significant both because of the size of the union, and the issues they cite.

The International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers District Lodge 751, representing more than 33,000 workers at 49 employers, announced today that it is endorsing Mike McGinn for Seattle mayor. "Seattle’s economy was built by a lot of smart and hard-working people, many of them union members," IAM 751 legislative director Larry Brown said via a press release. "Mayor McGinn has supported the issues important to working people, so we’re supporting him."

Specifically, the press release cites these six key issues:

  • His support for union workers on strike against Waste Management in Seattle, which helped lead to an early resolution of the walkout;
  • His support for workers employed by Hyatt hotels in Seattle, which helped them in their effort to form a union;
  • His support for Seattle’s fast food workers during their “Strike Poverty” action calling for higher pay;
  • His support for requiring a grocery store proposed for city-owned land in West Seattle to pay a living wage to its workers, as well as providing them with enough hours each week to qualify for health benefits;
  • His support for closing the pay gap between men and women in Seattle; and
  • His support for Seattle’s paid sick days law, which made the city a national leader in the effort to ensure workers don’t have to chose between their jobs and their health.

For a guy who has earned so much Democratic establishment enmity as a disruptive outsider, McGinn sure is picking up a lot of organized labor support, thanks to his strong pro-union record in office. Interestingly, word is that the powerful SEIU Healthcare 775NW, a longtime supporter of state Senator Ed Murray (and one which is very grateful to Murray for his longtime support in Olympia), has declined to make a primary endorsement, yet another example of the street cred McGinn has earned amongst union leaders.