Two leaders of one of New York City's oldest and most prominent trade unions are publicly breaking with the Democratic Party, calling its leftward lurch a betrayal of the working class, and warning that the building trades are walking away.
Robert "Bobby" Bartels, Jr., business manager of Steamfitters Local 638, and union president Brian Hunt told Fox News Digital that the Democratic Socialists of America and the broader Democratic establishment have abandoned the people who actually build things for a living. Their frustration comes as DSA-backed candidates swept primary elections in two New York congressional districts, and as Mayor Zohran Mamdani pursues a progressive agenda that the union says has left tradespeople behind.
Bartels did not mince words about what he sees in the DSA's rise across the city.
"I think they're communists, and I don't think they have the benefit of the working class, the real working class, the taxpayers', support."
That is the business manager of a 150-year-old union, not a cable news pundit, not a Republican operative, describing the political movement that just won two Democratic primaries in the nation's largest city.
The immediate trigger for the union leaders' public criticism was a pair of primary victories last week by DSA members Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez. Chevalier won in New York's 13th Congressional District; Valdez took the 7th. Both defeated incumbent or establishment Democrats. Rivals highlighted what Fox News Digital described as radical views held by both candidates during the campaign, though neither Chevalier nor Valdez returned the outlet's request for comment.
For Bartels, the victories confirm a pattern he finds deeply troubling. The Democratic Party, in his view, is not course-correcting when progressive policies fail. It is doubling down.
"They do have the people's support that want everything for free and want everything handed to them without working for it, and I think the Democratic Party is going way far to the left. And as a matter of fact, the more building trades people you speak to, the more they're going away from the Democratic Party."
The DSA's growing footprint in New York is not an isolated phenomenon. A Squad-backed socialist recently captured a Democratic primary in Philadelphia's heavily blue district, reflecting the same factional dynamics now roiling New York.
Bartels tied his frustration directly to immigration policy, specifically, what he called open border policies that drive down wages for union members. He was blunt about the mechanism.
"That we don't like. You know why? Because they're bringing the [illegal immigrants] in here to steal the Americans' jobs and lower the rates."
For a steamfitter or pipefitter whose livelihood depends on prevailing wage standards and union-negotiated contracts, the arrival of workers willing to undercut those rates is not an abstraction. It is a direct economic threat. Bartels framed the socialist wing's agenda as fundamentally hostile to the people who pay taxes and build infrastructure.
"They're working to tear down the people that are working and building everything."
He added: "Because I'm the working class, and they're not here to support me. They want to support the people who want to take from the working class."
That language, from a union boss, not a Republican strategist, captures a realignment that Democratic leaders have struggled to address. When the people who carry lunch pails and weld pipe for a living say the party no longer represents them, the party has a problem that no amount of messaging can fix.
Brian Hunt, the union's president, struck a more measured but no less pointed tone. He acknowledged the union's historical roots inside the Democratic coalition.
"I mean, we traditionally have been working class labor Democrats."
But Hunt made clear that tradition is fraying. He described the DSA's policy direction as increasingly at odds with the building trades.
"I think that DSA is going to have to try to find inroads through the labor movement in New York City because the labor movement in New York City, and I don't want to speak for everybody, but you know, personally, it feels like we align on things when we can, but a lot more of their policy has gone towards progressive politics that could end up getting in the way sometimes."
That careful phrasing, "could end up getting in the way sometimes", is the diplomatic version of what Bartels said with a hammer. The progressive wing's priorities, from rent control to immigration, do not line up with what tradespeople need: construction projects, prevailing wages, and contracts that specify union labor.
Even Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat hardly known for conservative sympathies, has warned publicly about what he called communist drift inside his own party. When a tattooed Pennsylvania populist and a New York steamfitter are sounding the same alarm, the problem is not regional. It is structural.
Hunt reserved particular criticism for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned on building affordable housing with union labor. That promise, Hunt said, remains unfulfilled.
"He's mentioned union labor, union labor, union labor quite a few times throughout his campaign. Affordable housing was a big political issue in New York City. He said it was going to be built, and it was going to be built by union labor, but nothing's been done yet, you know what I mean?"
What has been done, Hunt noted, is the progressive agenda. The New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted Thursday night to freeze rent, one of Mamdani's core campaign promises. Hunt acknowledged that Mamdani has moved on "the socialist policies, the super socialist stuff," but said the mayor has not yet shown the building trades he will follow through on the union labor commitment.
"He's taken care of a lot of I think the agenda that he campaigned on that pertains to like more of the socialist policies, the super socialist stuff...but, he's mentioned building with union labor, and I'd like to see him fulfill that promise and utilize union labor throughout the city."
The pattern Hunt describes is familiar to anyone who has watched progressive politicians govern: the ideological priorities get funded and implemented first, while the bread-and-butter commitments to working people get pushed to the back of the line. Mamdani did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Mamdani's broader posture toward the Democratic establishment has been openly confrontational. He has rallied with a socialist slate and declared an open challenge to Democratic Party leadership, positioning himself as a factional leader rather than a coalition builder. That may energize DSA activists. It does not build housing with union labor.
Steamfitters Local 638 is not merely grumbling from the sidelines. The union endorsed President Donald Trump in 2024, breaking with a Democratic alignment that stretched back generations. The union represents steamfitters, pipefitters, HVAC technicians, welders, and industrial and mechanical service technicians across New York City. It has existed for 150 years.
That endorsement was not a fluke. The New York Post reported that the union has roughly 10,000 active and retired members throughout New York City and Long Island. Bartels has continued to position the union as a voice for working people against partisan gridlock, telling the Post during the government shutdown: "While politicians from both parties stare each other down and play the blame game, the American worker and taxpayer suffers."
That willingness to criticize both parties gives Bartels and Hunt credibility that a partisan operative would not have. These are men who spent careers inside the Democratic coalition. They are not attacking it from the outside. They are describing, from lived experience, why it no longer works for the people it claims to represent.
The tension between organized labor and the socialist left is not confined to New York. Socialist operatives have attempted to recruit union-linked independent candidates in other states, blurring the line between labor advocacy and ideological activism in ways that many rank-and-file members find uncomfortable.
The facts on the ground in New York tell a clear story. DSA candidates are winning primaries. A DSA-aligned mayor is freezing rents and pursuing progressive priorities. And a 150-year-old trade union that once formed the backbone of the Democratic coalition is telling anyone who will listen that the party has left it behind.
Bartels described Democrats in power as "narcissists" and said the party doubles down on progressive policies when they fail rather than correcting course. Hunt was more restrained but no less clear: the building trades and the DSA are not natural allies, and the gap is widening.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. The Democratic Party's progressive wing has spent years arguing that its agenda represents the interests of working people. Bartels and Hunt, men who lead workers who weld pipe, install HVAC systems, and build the physical infrastructure of America's largest city, say that claim is hollow.
When the people who actually do the work tell you the party of the working class no longer works for them, you can listen, or you can keep losing them. The Democratic Party, so far, has chosen the latter.
