Dinkins's Union Support Withered Over Term

David Dinkins was elected the city's first (and so far only) black Mayor in 1989 in no small measure due to the strong support of its largest and most-powerful unions: District Council 37, the United Federation of Teachers and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.

While his defeat four years later in a rematch with Rudy Giuliani is most often attributed to the city's slow response to the 1991 Crown Heights riots, an overlooked factor in that narrow defeat was his loss of support—largely for other reasons—from DC 37 and the UFT. Local 1199 and its influential president, Dennis Rivera, remained firmly in his corner in the 1993 Mayor's race, but the relative lack of municipal employees the giant hospital workers union represented may have accounted for that.