Allegro

POLITICS MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Chief of Staff's Report

Volume 126, No. 10November, 2026

Rush Perez
rperez@local802afm.org

It’s been a few months since I last reported in Allegro, but now we’ve reached Election Day, and it’s time to go full-court press on politics. On the Local 802 side, I’ve been busy co-managing (or keeping my eyes on) many top-level campaigns, including the Met negotiations, the successfully concluded NYC Ballet negotiations, the union’s political endorsements for the 2026 midterms, the SRLA negotiations, organizing in general, and day-to-day staff issues.

But now it’s politics time. First, I want to report on my involvement in the Central Labor Council’s political and legislative directors conference, which took place on Oct. 7.

Local 802 is a member of the CLC, which is an umbrella group and powerhouse of all NYC unions. The CLC lets us amplify our power by networking, tracking each other’s campaigns, organizing rallies together, and focusing our political energy. President Dan Point and Executive Board Member Martha Hyde represent Local 802 as elected officers, and I participate as a staff member.

At this year’s conference, we worked in small groups to envision a truly Labor-first New York City and New York State. Working together, we laid out a political roadmap that would put unions and our members first in the corridors of power across New York.

So now we come to the midterms. This election, which takes place in just a few days on Nov. 3, is absolutely critical to winning a pro-labor (and pro-democracy) agenda in Congress. Over the past month, Local 802 organized our members to call fellow voters and make sure they had the information they needed to vote. We also tried to give people tools to feel less intimidated at the polls, which is becoming increasingly common across the country. I encourage you to do the following:

As always, you can reach me at rperez@local802afm.org