labor and leap : political coalition experiences in connecticut

Labor and LEAP

WorkingUSA—Summer 2000 19

WorkingUSA, vol. 4, no.1, Summer 2000, pp. 19–34.© 2000 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN 1089–7011 / 2000 $9.50 + 0.00.

LOUISE SIMMONS teaches at the University of Connecticut. The author thanks the followingindividuals, who were interviewed for this article during March and April 2000: Marc Caplan, JillHurst, Merrilee Milstein, John Murphy, Peggy Shorey, George Springer, and Phil Wheeler.

Labor and LEAPPolitical Coalition Experiencesin Connecticut

Louise Simmons

For two decades LEAP has helped elect labor andprogressive activists and mobilized legislativecoalitions for change. Today LEAP faces the challengesof broadening its coalition, reorganizing its resourcebase, and developing an agenda for economic change.

WHY might the Legislative Education Action Program(LEAP) in Connecticut, one of the most enduringand successful political coalitions of labor and com-

munity forces in the United States, decide it is time to reinventitself—even contemplate reconstituting in some new form? An-swering this question provides insights into the challenges ofpolitical action programs for labor and labor’s involvement inbroader coalitions.

LEAP formed in Connecticut during the early 1980s as theReagan era dawned and conservative political action commit-tees were targeting progressive state legislators. Unions and citi-zen action groups decided it was time to put together a coalitionthat would unite forces behind progressive candidates, defend

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20 WorkingUSA—Summer 2000

those in office, and back initiatives in the legislature. Over its twodecades of work, LEAP’s accomplishments are impressive. It hasa winning track record in terms of the candidates it backs: Recentestimates are that more than 80 percent of LEAP-endorsed can-didates for the state legislature have won office (Shorey 1998). Italso has been instrumental in shaping policy at the legislature.LEAP helped convene movements to enact a state income tax, todefeat “English only” legislation, and to advocate corporate re-sponsibility legislation. It is involved in movements to defend re-productive rights, patients’ rights under managed care, and gayrights, and it has marshaled support for progressive candidatesfor higher offices in Connecticut. Close to thirty different organi-zations—unions, women’s organizations, human service advo-cates, citizen action and civil rights groups, and others participate(Reynolds 1997, 1998, 1999; Simmons 1994, 1998; Caplan andRapoport 1993; Brecher and Costello 1990). So why is it time toreexamine LEAP’s mission and modus operandi?

LEAP at a Crossroads

LEAP’s success has generated a complex set of problems. One is-sue reflects the problem experienced in a variety of progressiveorganizations in which whites constitute the majority of partici-pants. Many activists from the organizations in LEAP have be-come so accustomed to working together, and such a tight-knitgroup has developed, that it is sometimes difficult for emergingpolitical activists from communities of color to find a comfortlevel in joining the coalition (Reynolds 1999). Participation byactivists from the African-American and Puerto Rican/Latinocommunities has been sporadic: They often bypass LEAP and taketheir issues directly into Democratic Party politics. Moreover,LEAP has focused more on statewide issues and brought togethergroups that operate on a statewide basis. Much political activism

Labor and LEAP


within communities of color finds expression at the local ormunicipal level and also has great involvement of leaders from thefaith community. Municipal politics has not been a consistent focusof LEAP, and the faith community has not been a huge factor either.

Within LEAP, trust and relationships have been built over num-bers of years, deepening over time. And while differences stillperiodically erupt over specific issues or candidates, LEAP orga-nizations that have been in the trenches together on many fightshave achieved a high level of cooperation. New entrants, espe-cially from underrepresented constituencies, can find it difficult tocarve their own space in the coalition. Although the issue of incon-sistent participation by people of color has received a great deal ofattention from LEAP’s leadership, and several initiatives to addressthe problem have been mounted, it remains a major shortcoming.However, many of the unions that participate most consistently havesubstantial numbers of members who are African American andLatino. The problem reflects itself at the board of directors leveland in terms of LEAP’s perception in the larger community.

Turnover of leaders and key activists is another issue. Manyactivists who helped found LEAP and shape its direction havemoved on into other endeavors, sometimes related closely toLEAP’s work but sometimes in distinctly different areas. As LEAPaccumulated electoral victories and demonstrated its viability,building regional networks and LEAP-prototypes in other statescommanded the attention of founding organizer Marc Caplan.Others who helped build the group won statewide office—MilesRapoport became the secretary of state in Connecticut in 1994and Bill Curry served as state comptroller in the mid-1990s—andtheir attention necessarily turned to those duties.1 New talentedleaders and staff emerged within LEAP, but many of these indi-viduals also eventually moved on. Working for LEAP is immenselydemanding, and sometimes LEAP staff moved into jobs that areeasier to mesh with family responsibilities.

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Maintaining LEAP’s resource base is a huge challenge. Fund-ing sources often are willing to support specific projects on suchissues as campaign finance reform, or research on who receiveseconomic development assistance, but supporting the day-to-dayoperations of the coalition has become increasingly difficult overtime. As current LEAP board president and Connecticut Federa-tion of Educational and Professional Employees union presidentGeorge Springer puts it, when LEAP was at the cutting edge in itsearly years, grants were a great deal easier to obtain. Now, twentyyears later, support for overhead and operational costs is harderto find—it is no longer a question of seed money to launch a newand innovative project, it is a question of the need for long-termsupport. Other coalitions have developed in the Northeast andacross the country, all of which also seek foundation funding.Unions and other constituent organizations do provide some fi-nancial backing for LEAP, but, despite their generosity, and be-cause all of these organizations deal with their own priorities andtheir own scarcities, it is difficult to generate the requisite fundsfrom the affiliates alone. Foundation support has been critical toLEAP’s ability to maintain itself and requires a great deal of at-tention to sustain, so when there is a lapse of attention to theseresources, as has occurred when LEAP staff has necessarily de-voted time to other organizational issues, these grants have be-come more difficult to obtain.

One of LEAP’s greatest accomplishments is that through itswork and that of its affiliates, the public policy agenda in Con-necticut been redefined and there have been significant policyvictories in the legislative arena. Issues such as the fairness of thestate’s tax structure, campaign finance reform, and corporateaccountability are squarely on the public agenda. LEAP-affiliatedunions have generally amassed wider support for their issuesthrough the coalition than if they had to struggle on their own.Now there are public officials, especially several LEAP-backed

Labor and LEAP


state legislators, who routinely get involved in labor issues andare willing to sponsor pro-labor legislation, support strikes andorganizing drives, or even become involved in civil disobedienceactivity with unions on picket lines or at demonstrations. More-over, several union activists now serve in the legislature and takeleadership on progressive issues: Representative Chris Donovan

is an organizer for the Congress of Community Colleges, whichis affiliated with the Service Employees International Union(SEIU), and is co-chairperson of the legislature’s Labor Commit-tee. Senator Tom Colapietro is a United Auto Workers (UAW)member who has been active in his union’s political action pro-gram. Candidates who request LEAP’s assistance are screenedfor their positions on a variety of issues. Prominent among themare priorities of LEAP-affiliated unions, such as privatization, thelevel of state support for health care services and programs, com-munity college issues, and incentives for economic development.

LEAP’s ability to redefine the public agenda has also led to theperception that unions overwhelmingly influence LEAP’s delib-erations and policy priorities. Thus, those nonlabor organizationsthat affiliate with LEAP must feel comfortable working closelywith labor and, conversely, groups that aren’t comfortable in acoalition that embraces labor would have difficulty within LEAP.Moreover, it can be difficult to hold some politicians (even a fewwho have been elected with LEAP’s backing) accountable to suchan agenda and to vote favorably on those economic issues that

Labor’s presence and labor’s agenda in theLEAP coalition place this movementsquarely at odds with the corporate power inthe political arena and position it as a majortarget of the business lobby.

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are important to labor. Labor’s presence and labor’s agenda inthe LEAP coalition place this movement squarely at odds withthe corporate power in the political arena and position it as amajor target of the business lobby.

Conservative or personally ambitious politicians also perceiveLEAP as a threat. So, to counter the power of the coalition, ac-

cording to one LEAP staff member, political leaders from the gov-ernor to legislative leaders have tried to encourage individualconstituent parts of LEAP to essentially “cut deals” on their own,and one recent house speaker was instrumental in the dissolu-tion of the legislative progressive caucus that LEAP helped tocoalesce. This house speaker did not want to see a division amongDemocrats between the progressive caucus and the moderatecaucus that formed in response to the progressive presence in thelegislature. Since liberals and progressives were in key leader-ship positions, a progressive caucus was unnecessary and divi-sive from his perspective. On the one hand, these developmentsdemonstrate recognition of the strength of the progressive coali-tion as something certain politicians fear, but as the wheeling anddealing unfold, that strength gets diluted.

The LEAP coalition encounters additional challenges, such asmaintaining participation by affiliates and the changing technol-ogy surrounding elections. The original vision for LEAP was thatits organizations would involve their rank-and-file members incampaigns for LEAP-endorsed candidates. And LEAP has done

Labor and all progressive forces faceincreasingly serious challenges in this era ofthe global economy, attacks on the welfarestate, growing social polarization, andunabating racial and economic inequality.

Labor and LEAP


nothing short of a remarkable job in campaign training: By 1998,more than 800 individuals from unions and other affiliates hadbeen involved in multiple levels of training, including trainingfor candidates, campaign management, and volunteers (Shorey1998). However, not all the LEAP organizations have been ableto accomplish rank-and-file participation on a consistent basis,and some affiliates still do not have a sufficiently developed po-litical action apparatus to effectively mobilize members. More-over, some of LEAP’s affiliates function more as advocates onbehalf of various constituencies rather than as organizationsbased on membership, and these groups may not have as solid abase to mobilize, as do unions.

Even if every LEAP affiliate had a highly developed politicalaction operation, a sophisticated “election business” has devel-oped, as LEAP staff member John Murphy describes it, changingthe nature of campaigns and reliance on volunteer operations.Whereas fifteen to twenty years ago, volunteers from LEAP or-ganizations would staff phone banks, research voter lists, andperform the other “grunt work” of elections, now an entire in-dustry has evolved and consultants perform these tasks for a fee.While upstart progressive candidates with limited funds may stillrequire the volunteer-based effort of LEAP campaigns, seasonedincumbents who can more easily raise campaign contributions—progressives among them—have the option of “buying” phone banksand coded voter lists. This may seem antithetical to progressive poli-tics, yet it is a shortcut that is attractive to some candidates. More-over, these developments allow candidates who don’t want to bebound to LEAP’s agenda to more easily bypass the group.

Leap’s Future

On balance, LEAP has broadened support for labor’s issues, par-ticularly for the unions that participate most actively, through

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both its formal agenda and the relationships that have developedamong participating organizations. Now, as LEAP struggles withits next stage of development, there is really no time to rest onpast accomplishments. Labor and all progressive forces face in-creasingly serious challenges in this era of the global economy,attacks on the welfare state, growing social polarization, andunabating racial and economic inequality. So LEAP is undertak-ing a two-pronged approach to charting its future.

One prong is to proceed with LEAP’s more traditional activi-ties of assistance to candidates at a scaled-back level, in a limitedbut more strategic set of campaigns. As impressive as it may soundto have a large number of organizations come together, developcandidate-screening methods, then jointly interview and endorsecandidates, in practice it was a time-consuming and inefficientuse of many activists’ time. With a large number of endorsements,the value of a LEAP endorsement meant less and less over time,especially given the increasing use of outside consultants. As Con-necticut SEIU State Council Director Jill Hurst characterizes it,LEAP was trying to be too many things to too many groups andended up spreading itself too thin. A great laundry list of issueswas generated, but a progressive base was not truly being built.So with better focusing of its efforts and campaign assistance to alimited number of priority races, LEAP will be able to use its re-sources more effectively.

However, LEAP is undertaking a promising new project thatemploys geographic information systems (GIS) technology todevelop accurate membership and voter lists for constituent or-ganizations. Traditionally associated with urban geography andurban planning, GIS used in this manner opens up a new electiontechnology, enabling participating organizations to map theirmembership, track voter registration among members, and, forexample, evaluate where a critical mass of several different or-ganizations’ members reside and can be mobilized. This project

Labor and LEAP


also allows LEAP to provide its affiliates with a cutting-edge tech-nological innovation and to be more useful to the organizationsthan many of the election consultants whose voter lists are oftenof dubious accuracy.

LEAP’s other strategic prong is to engage in longer-term plan-ning, a process that is proceeding slowly. The challenge here ishow to build a broader coalition, bring additional forces under aprogressive “umbrella,” build truly multiracial coalitions and fa-cilitate better working relationships among these forces, as wellas determine the best role for LEAP in this process. An organiz-ing committee has been formed for this purpose, consisting ofleaders from organizations both within and outside of LEAP, andit will consider a myriad of options for future coalition buildingin Connecticut. By the end of 2000, specific options will be for-mulated and considered for adoption by the organizing commit-tee. Yet, as board president George Springer observes, this planningor visioning process has to be done at the same time as electionsare under way and the more traditional work of LEAP proceeds.Since there are no simple solutions, the process is complex. Yet, asfounder Marc Caplan observes, there is enthusiasm for creatinga new future, building on this twenty-year history of activism.

Coalition Building Spreads

Other noteworthy and inventive efforts under way in Connecti-cut involve labor in the political arena. Constituent organizationsof LEAP and several related coalitions have been very creativeand successful in pursuing issues in legislative bodies. For pub-lic-sector unions, what can’t be won solely at the bargaining tableoften necessitates effective political solutions. SEIU in Connecti-cut—which includes the New England Health Care Employees–District 1199, Local 531 (which is involved in the struggles of localjanitors), the Congress of Connecticut Community Colleges, and

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other public-sector locals—has taken on major fights and wonseveral huge victories. In the 1999 legislative session, a “stan-dard wage” bill was passed, affecting state contracts with ven-dors of services such as maintenance and food service. Theproblem was that the wages of unionized workers in these indus-tries could always be undercut by nonunion companies in thestate’s competitive bidding process, making it virtually impos-sible for these workers to enjoy any significant increase in theirwages and living standards. Similar to prevailing wage laws, thisnew law helps protect union wage levels by setting standards forthe private firms with whom the state of Connecticut contracts.The culmination of several years of effort, SEIU in concert withthe Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE)designated every Wednesday during the 1999 legislative sessionas a lobby day and brought dozens of rank-and-file members tothe state capitol each week to press their issues. Careful targetingof specific legislators and turning former opponents into support-ers won the bill’s passage after a struggle of several years. SEIUheld similar weekly lobby days in the 2000 legislative session topursue its legislative agenda. In their SEIU signature purple jack-ets, berets, shirts and other identifiers, the presence of these mem-bers can’t be missed in the halls of the legislature as they createan impressive “purple haze.”

The purple haze descended over city hall in Hartford, whenmany of the same unions and additional community allies cametogether around a municipal living-wage ordinance for compa-nies doing business with the city. The ordinance passed in the fallof 1999 after months of lobbying, rallying, and negotiations withcity officials.

A unique coalition has highlighted the issue of corporate re-sponsibility in public discourse and in concrete legislative pro-posals. Citizens for Economic Opportunity (CEO) involves anumber of unions, the Connecticut State AFL-CIO, and commu-

Labor and LEAP


nity allies. CEO’s ambitious agenda includes: a multi-year cam-paign to enact standards for corporations receiving state economicdevelopment assistance; public education and organizing aroundthe job loss and community impacts of insurance industry restruc-turing; a campaign concerning the conversion of Connecticut BlueCross from a nonprofit to the for-profit Anthem Blue Cross; andraising the issue of corporate accountability and community stan-dards in Hartford during debate over the stadium proposal forthe aborted move of the New England Patriots to Hartford andother ongoing redevelopment projects. In the 2000 legislative ses-sion in Connecticut, CEO’s corporate responsibility legislationcame within one vote of passing in the state senate. The coalitionwill pursue this legislation in 2000. CEO relies on substantial sup-port from Region 9A of the United Auto Workers and mobilizesthe rank and file and staff of several unions in its legislativeagenda. It is also in the enviable position of helping initiate a health-care access foundation that will utilize a $31 million settlement fromlitigation over the conversion of Blue Cross from a mutual insurer inConnecticut to the for-profit Anthem Blue Cross.

A particularly promising effort is under way in Stamford, Con-necticut. It unites four unions (1199, SEIU 531, HERE, and UAW)and the national AFL-CIO in a community-wide organizingproject, now known as the Stamford Project. Targeting the cityfor coordinated union and community organizing, StamfordProject organizers not only target unorganized workers but alsotake on key community-wide issues, in particular affordable hous-ing. Project director Jane McAlevey points out that Stamford hasthe fourth highest concentration of corporate headquarters in theUnited States and the third most expensive housing market. Hous-ing, particularly plans to demolish public housing in Stamford, isof huge concern to union members, especially those most recentlyorganized. Working with local clergy and other community forces,organizers from this labor-initiated project have assumed criti-

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cal leadership in the struggle for affordable housing both in Stam-ford and at the legislature. Part of this effort involved the AFL-CIO’s issuing in effect a “challenge grant” to the state ofConnecticut: The AFL-CIO announced it would commit $50 mil-lion from its pension investment fund for affordable housing inConnecticut if the state would match this contribution with $50million from the state’s budget surplus to create a Housing TrustFund. As of this writing, the fate of this proposal awaits the out-come of the state legislature’s deliberations.

On some work in the legislative arena there is a division of la-bor between unions and community forces, especially with theConnecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG). CCAG has been asignificant force within CEO and LEAP and on specific issue cam-paigns. As LEAP has begun to scale back some of its activities,CCAG has expanded its role and strengthened its capacity. Be-sides its work in CEO, it coordinates a health-care reform coali-tion, “Health Care for All,” and takes a lead role in campaignfinance reform battles. It is part of the regional network, North-east Action, along with LEAP and similar political coalitions inNew England and New York, and is setting the pace for manycitizen action organizations.

Allies in the faith community also make significant contribu-tions on behalf of labor’s agenda. For example, the director of theCapitol Region Conference of Churches in the Hartford area is akey activist within CEO and consistently appears before the leg-islature to testify and lobby for the coalition’s legislative initia-tives. A group of local clergy in Hartford, along with severalelected officials, also participated in a sit-in and civil disobedi-ence at a picket line of striking nursing home workers who are1199 members.2 As labor’s essential message of social and eco-nomic justice is beginning to come through more effectively tothe public, the ties with local clergy are also strengthening as theysee commonalities with labor.

Labor and LEAP


Lessons Learned: Building Solidarity into Reality

Experiences in LEAP and other political battles in Connecticutoffer several insights as to what it means to build and sustainpolitical coalitions that effectively champion labor’s issues. Whilenot all of the lessons of LEAP may apply elsewhere, the issuesthat have manifested within LEAP’s various stages of develop-ment illustrate some of the problems faced by many different coa-litions, particularly those that are longer lasting. Initiating andgrowing a coalition provides one set of challenges, but sustaininga coalition for twenty years presents quite another set.

A coalition like LEAP that works over the long term is builtupon a strong network of organizations whose activists trust eachother based on their work together over periods of years. Theunions that have been a part of LEAP have all faced survivalstruggles whether they are machinists at United Technologies,health-care workers in the public and private sectors, janitors,teachers, or others. The leaders of these unions respect the seri-ous struggles that their counterparts face in their respective in-dustries and recognize that each union must develop the mosteffective strategy possible to defend its members’ interests. Butsome leaders also recognize that the labor movement has to standfor more than the sum total of its parts, and so the LEAPs, theCEOs, and other coalition efforts receive substantial attention.And because all of these unions need allies in the broader com-munity, they know that in order to have allies, there must be re-ciprocal support for the priorities of these community forces.

Coalition partners in LEAP and elsewhere have to recognizethat there simply are times when there will be disagreements andeveryone will have to live with those differences. Organizationswithin LEAP have sometimes endorsed opposing candidates inprimaries and even in general elections. A case in point: In 1994when LEAP activist Bill Curry ran for governor as a Democrat,he faced two opponents, the Republican John Rowland and Eunice

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Groark. Groark ran under the banner of A Connecticut Party, theparty formed by Lowell Weicker in his successful third-party bidin 1988. Several women’s organizations that are members of LEAPendorsed Groark and worked hard on her behalf. Curry lost toRowland by less than 4 percent of the vote. There have been otherdifferences over endorsements among the coalition partners overthe years, but somehow organizations have found a way to stayin LEAP and work on issues or campaigns over which there isconsensus. Even if ill feelings sometimes linger over these differ-ences and the problems are not publicly aired or resolved, thegroups find ways to stay in the coalition.

Since so often the issue campaigns of LEAP organizations havetaken several years to win, an additional lesson from this work,certainly not a novel one, is the need for patience and persever-ance. To redefine the terms of political debate is a difficult pro-cess, and victories may take several years to accomplish. A setbackon an issue one year does not necessarily constitute a permanentdefeat. In fact, in some battles in Connecticut, such as the stan-dard wage bill, there was an expectation by officials in the legis-lature that several years of effort would be required.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons from LEAP’s workis something that is at the heart of every political action program,the need for rank-and-file mobilization. But there are new waysin which this issue is being thought about now within the labormovement, and many of the LEAP organizations may also needto reconsider their own mobilization strategies. According to theAFL-CIO’s Northeast Region deputy director, Merrilee Milstein,the AFL-CIO is emphasizing a “member-to-member mobilization”approach, that is, the need for unions to activate their basethrough outreach by members to other members. This approachhas been adopted by SEIU in Connecticut and involves the re-cruitment of rank-and-file political organizers, “member politi-cal organizers,” or MPOs as SEIU calls them, who will pledge to

Labor and LEAP


devote four hours a month to political action and to recruit otherworkers to become MPOs. The goal is to have several hundredSEIU MPOs active in the fall election campaigns. What Milsteinemphasizes is that union endorsements don’t carry much mean-ing if the base isn’t organized. But, even more important, if unionsdon’t talk to their members and don’t explain the issues, they willlose strength in the political arena. Through experiences duringthe Labor 96 and Labor 98 mobilizations, the AFL-CIO learnedwhat members want most of their unions: They want their unionsto inform them about the issues and tell them where candidatesstand on the issues. They don’t just want their union to send thema letter telling them to vote for Candidate X. They want to basetheir voting decisions on information about issues, and they gen-erally trust the information their unions provide them. Moreover,the most effective way to reach workers is in person, at the job(Rosenthal 1998). If all of the organizations within LEAP, par-ticularly the unions, transform their political action programs intothis type of mobilization, each group and the entire coalition willbe much stronger.

LEAP is at a crossroads in its development. As the novelty of itssuccesses has waned and as unions fashion newer models of mo-bilizing their members in the political arena, LEAP must neces-sarily adjust its own functioning. In many areas, simply buildinga coalition that could achieve something analogous to LEAP’spresent stage of development would be a huge step forward. How-ever, this new stage in LEAP’s history breeds a new and differentset of challenges. So as LEAP’s future unfolds, its evolution andthe ability of the coalition to maintain itself will be instructivefor those who hope to see labor advance a political agenda.

Notes

1. Both also sought higher office. Curry ran for governor and Rapoport for Con-gress. Neither was successful in his bid. Curry then worked on the White House staff

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for several years and Rapoport has built a new organization, Democracy Works,which focuses on building democratic processes and civic participation.

2. Both Vice President Al Gore and former senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) also visitedthis picket line at the Avery Heights Nursing Home during the presidential primarycampaign in Connecticut in February and March 2000. In his visit, Gore pledged toaddress the issue of permanent replacement workers if elected president.

References

Brecher, Jeremy, and Tim Costello. 1990. Building Bridges. New York: Monthly ReviewPress.

Caplan, Marc, and Miles Rapoport. 1993. “Rebuilding Politics from the Ground Up.”Social Policy 24, no. 2 (winter 1993): 40–50.

Reynolds, David. 1997. Democracy Unbound. Boston: Monthly Review Press.———. 1998. “Building the Rainbow.” WorkingUSA 2, no. 1 (May/June 1998): 9–20.———. 1999. “Coalition Politics: Insurgent Union Political Action Builds Ties Be-

tween Labor and the Community.” Labor Studies Journal 24, no. 3 (fall 1999):54–75.

Rosenthal, Steve. 1998. “Building to Win, Building to Last: The AFL-CIO’s PoliticalProgram.” In Not Your Father’s Labor Movement, ed. Jo-Ann Mort. New York: VersoPress, pp. 99–111.

Shorey, Peggy. 1998. “Electoral Coalition Strategy: Building Progressive Power: AProgress Report on Coalition Strategy from the Coalitions’ Inception to thePresent.” Report for Northeast Action, March.

Simmons, Louise. 1994. Organizing in Hard Times: Labor and Neighborhoods in Hartford.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

———. 1998. “Community-Labor Coalitions: A Well-Spring from Connecticut.”Shelterforce: The Journal of Affordable Housing Strategies, no. 101 (September/Octo-ber 1998): 16–18, 42.

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labor and leap : political coalition experiences in connecticut

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