The leaders of one of New York City's oldest trade unions are done pretending the Democratic Party still speaks for the men and women who build the city's skyline. In interviews with Fox News Digital, the business manager and president of Steamfitters Local 638 unloaded on the Democratic Socialists of America and the party that keeps making room for them, warning that the building trades are heading for the exits.
Their frustration follows a string of DSA-backed primary victories in New York City congressional races that have rattled the Democratic establishment and emboldened the party's hard-left flank. For Robert "Bobby" Bartels Jr. and Brian Kearney, the men who run a 150-year-old union of pipefitters, welders, and HVAC technicians, the message is simple: these socialists don't work for us.
Bartels did not mince words about the DSA candidates now winning Democratic primaries 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."
Steamfitters Local 638 has mostly backed Democratic candidates throughout its long history. That changed in 2024, when the union endorsed President Donald Trump, a break significant enough that Bartels spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15 of that year.
Now, with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani in City Hall and DSA-aligned candidates winning primaries in New York's 7th and 13th Congressional Districts, the rift between organized labor and the Democratic left is widening, not healing.
Bartels pointed directly at immigration policy as a wedge driving his members away from the party. He told Fox News Digital that open-border policies threaten the livelihoods of the union workers he represents:
"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 union whose members depend on prevailing-wage protections and negotiated contracts, the complaint is not abstract. It is a paycheck issue. And Bartels framed the DSA's broader agenda as hostile to the people who actually build things:
"They're working to tear down the people that are working and building everything."
Mamdani's administration has already drawn sharp criticism for its approach to federal authority. The mayor defied a Supreme Court ruling on deportation protections earlier in his tenure, a move that reinforced concerns about the ideological direction of his office.
Brian Kearney, the union's president, struck a slightly more measured tone but arrived at the same destination. He acknowledged the building trades' long alignment with Democrats, then described the growing gap between the party's socialist wing and the workers it claims to champion.
"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."
Kearney reserved his sharpest critique for Mamdani himself. The mayor campaigned on a promise to build affordable housing with union labor. Kearney said that promise 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?"
Kearney noted that Mamdani has delivered on "the super socialist stuff", including a Rent Guidelines Board vote to freeze rents, while the union-labor pledge gathers dust. The pattern is familiar to anyone who watches left-wing politicians operate: the ideological priorities get funded and fast-tracked, while the promises made to working people get pushed to the back of the line.
The characterization of Mamdani as a communist is not limited to union halls. Bill Maher called the mayor a communist on his own show, a label that keeps attaching itself to Mamdani's governance regardless of the venue.
The union leaders' frustration did not materialize in a vacuum. DSA-backed candidates swept key New York City congressional primaries, defeating establishment-aligned incumbents in the process. Darializa Avila Chevalier won the Democratic primary in New York's 13th Congressional District, and Claire Valdez took the 7th.
National Review reported that Mamdani's endorsed candidates won all three targeted congressional primary races on June 23, 2026. In the 13th District, Avila Chevalier defeated five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who had the backing of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Brad Lander upset incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the 10th District. The results amounted to a direct repudiation of the Democratic establishment's grip on New York City politics.
Neither Avila Chevalier nor Valdez returned Fox News Digital's request for comment. Neither did Mamdani.
The DSA is not treating these wins as a ceiling. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Mamdani's allies are now planning primary challenges against Jeffries himself, along with Reps. Ritchie Torres, Jerry Nadler, Dan Goldman, and Yvette Clarke. Jeffries' senior adviser André Richardson responded with a warning: "Our response will be forceful and unrelenting. We will teach them and all of their incumbents a painful lesson on June 23, 2026."
That Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have yet to officially endorse Mamdani following his primary win tells its own story about the fractures inside the party.
The New York primaries are not isolated events. The Washington Examiner reported that the DSA has endorsed roughly 150 candidates this cycle, with 35 either winning primaries or advancing without opposition. The organization claims victories across Oregon, California, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Utah, Maryland, and New York. It plans to survey all 250 local chapters this summer to identify future candidates and shape long-term strategy ahead of 2028.
"They have a good ground game. They don't always win, but they are very determined, and they learn from their mistakes," said Stu Smith of the Manhattan Institute.
Meanwhile, Mamdani's economic stewardship has drawn scrutiny of its own. His tax proposals have threatened a $6 billion development project and the livelihoods of street vendors who depend on it, the kind of collateral damage that socialist policymaking routinely inflicts on the very working people it claims to elevate.
New York Attorney General Letitia James warned that Mamdani's endorsements threaten to "blow up" the Democratic Party, Just the News reported. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, offered a blunter assessment of the establishment's failure to counter the DSA's rise: "People who do not support the DSA wring their hands at cocktail parties, while the DSA is organizing."
That line captures the dynamic perfectly. The Democratic establishment has spent years treating its socialist wing as a manageable nuisance. Now that wing is winning primaries, installing a mayor, and drawing up target lists of senior party leaders.
Bartels framed the realignment in personal terms. Asked why the DSA does not represent people like him, he was direct:
"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."
He described a broader shift among building trades workers away from the Democratic Party, a migration that accelerated with the 2024 Trump endorsement and shows no signs of reversing.
The DSA's own leadership is candid about its ambitions. NYC-DSA co-chairwoman Grace Mausser declared after the primary wins: "These victories prove that democratic socialists are building a winning coalition." Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Bernie Sanders, told reporters that Mamdani sees an opportunity to "radically change the Democratic Party."
That may be true. But radical change has consequences. And the first people to feel those consequences are not the activists or the politicians. They are the pipefitters, the welders, and the HVAC technicians whose union has been around for a century and a half, and whose patience has run out.
Bill Clinton recently shrugged off the socialist primary wins, insisting Democrats are "in good shape" for the fall. The men who actually weld the pipes and fit the joints in New York City disagree. And unlike party strategists, they vote with their livelihoods on the line.
When the people who build the buildings tell you they're leaving your party, you don't have a messaging problem. You have a credibility problem.
