UNITE HERE Local 100 endorsed Michael Blake for New York’s 15th Congressional District on Tuesday, giving the challenger his first major labor backing as he mounts a primary fight against incumbent Rep. Ritchie Torres.
The union’s 17,000 members in New York and New Jersey work concession stands and hospitality posts at Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Madison Square Garden, and Barclays Center. That footprint spans two states and some of the city’s most iconic addresses, which makes the endorsement carry real political weight in a Bronx-based district where organized labor still moves voters.
Union president José Maldonado announced the backing in a statement posted to Instagram, calling Blake “a disruptor” and “champion for working families.” He said Blake is “squarely focused on addressing a rigged economy at a time when many members in Congress are determined to preserve the status quo.” Dante de Blasio, the union’s political director and son of former mayor Bill de Blasio, helped coordinate the endorsement. Bill de Blasio is also backing Blake.
The announcement landed days after Blake showed up at an April 16 rally outside National Hockey League headquarters in midtown Manhattan. He stood with Local 100 members protesting conditions at UBS Arena on Long Island, where workers haven’t had a contract since Oct. 31, 2025. UBS Arena management has offered a 75-cent hourly wage increase. The union is demanding at least $2.
Seventy-five cents. That’s what arena workers got as an opening offer.
Attorney General Letitia James backed the union’s position directly, saying in a statement that “a 75-cent hourly raise from a company that generates billions in revenue is an insult.” State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso also issued statements of support. City Council Member Lincoln Restler and former Comptroller Brad Lander, who is himself running for Congress, attended the rally as well.
Blake didn’t hold back on the league’s role. “NHL needs to stop playing games,” he told the crowd. “When corporate money and big money believe they’re more important than the people, we gotta set them straight.”
The Long Island arena dispute ties directly into Blake’s broader argument against Torres, and it carries a specific New York commuter dimension that anyone who’s ridden the A train at 1 a.m. after a game can picture. Many UBS Arena workers don’t live on Long Island. They commute from the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, spending hours and dollars each way to earn wages that haven’t kept pace with what it costs to rent an apartment, buy groceries, or keep MetroCards loaded.
Blake told the Bronx Times that workers can’t wait for pay raises. He framed the urgency around a figure that lands hard in any outer-borough conversation: 1 in 4 New Yorkers can’t afford essentials right now. “Why are we still fighting for quality wages?” he said.
His background informs the position. Blake’s father was a member of 1199SEIU, one of the city’s largest and most politically active health care unions, and Blake has made clear he sees union power as foundational, not optional, for any working-class agenda in Congress.
The Torres camp hasn’t responded publicly to the Local 100 endorsement. Torres has held NY-15 since 2021 and built a national profile, particularly on housing and civil rights issues, but Blake is trying to peel away the labor coalition that once formed the backbone of Bronx Democratic politics. An endorsement from a union whose members serve beer and hot dogs at Yankee Stadium isn’t just symbolic. It’s an organizing infrastructure, a network of shop stewards and local leaders who can knock on doors and turn out voters in a low-turnout primary.
For Bronx residents who work in the service economy, the stakes of the UBS Arena contract fight and the NY-15 primary aren’t separate stories. They’re the same one. Blake is making the explicit case that federal representation should mean showing up outside NHL headquarters on a Wednesday in April, not just casting votes in Washington on bills that rarely reach the floor.
The UBS Arena press office did not respond to requests for comment before publication, according to earlier coverage of the dispute.