Where There's Smoke

Where there’s smoke… Global Strategy Group, the Democratic polling & PR firm, denies that it was hired by Amazon to thwart the union drive at its Staten Island warehouse.

Workers voted 55 percent to 45 percent to join the newly created Amazon Labor Union on April 1, making the facility the first unionized shop in Amazon’s network.

CNBC reported March 31 that GSG created anti-union materials in a bid to defeat the organizing drive and noted the shop did polling for a pro-Biden super PAC before the 2020 election.

Following the vote, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president was glad to see the vote in favor of the union. Biden was happy to see that the voices of Amazon workers were heard and believes they “made their choice to organize a grassroots union to bargain for better jobs and a better life.”

Global Strategy released a statement that called the CNBC story “grossly inaccurate and misrepresents the work we do for Amazon.” It claims the story “incorrectly attributes anti-union work to GSG that was done by others.”

CNBC says it has documents that backs up its reporting about GSG.

Eric Adams, New York’s control freak mayor, says every press release or advisory issued by his administration must be approved by City Hall, or else.

In a March 31 Zoom call with about 50 officials, Adams said he’s noticed that press releases have gone out that he knew nothing about or jumped the gun on a policy issue.

He has a new “city agency press release tracker” where releases or statements must be submitted for approval, according to an audio of the Zoom call obtained by Politico.

The mayor fancies himself as a big believer in discipline of message and action.

“I am the mayor of the city and all communications that come through this city government are coming through with my message,” said Adams.

The new mayor’s micromanagement strategy could work if he was the leader of a village somewhere upstate.

Adams, though, oversees a city government of more than 300K civil servants including doctors, teachers, firefighters, nurses, engineers, sanitation workers, artists and police officers.

He has to trust the judgment of the people that he selected to help him run the city.

If he doesn’t, Adams will tie himself up in knots. Press releases will be the least of his worries.