The love is gone for Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago — at least from some members of the first union to endorse her in 2019.
At a fundraiser for Plumbers Union Local 130 on Sunday, Lightfoot was met with boos from the crowd after she was introduced on stage, video shows.
The mayor “spoke for less than a minute. And there was a resounding booing throughout the room,” one reported attendee told the paper. “Almost deafening … I was sitting at the table with a bunch of plumbers. They’re like, ‘We’ve never heard that before here.’ … Clearly, their membership is not with her. … They were calling her names. It was bad.”
In video of the booing incident, one person is heard saying, “I knew that was going to happen.” Another seemingly says, “That’s f***ing brutal.”
Plumbers Union Local 130 recording secretary Pat McCarthy admitted that she heard the booing but said Lightfoot was able to finish her remarks, rebutting a notion that she was technically “booed off the stage.”
“I was there when she was speaking,” McCarthy said. “There were a couple of people in the corner that booed. But it was nothing significant. And it didn’t disrupt the event at all.”
“I would have to suspect whoever was booing at that event was not a member of this local,” the recording secretary speculated. “We respect her and we have no problems with the mayor.”
Lightfoot’s political director Dave Mellet downplayed the booing, too.
“I don’t believe that she was, quote-unquote, ‘booed’ at this event,” Mellet told the Sun-Times. “I believe she was well received. There may have been a couple of people in the room who came in there to shout and be loud.”
As noted by Fox News, Lightfoot has been catching heat from unions over her vaccine mandate, requiring “city workers to report their COVID-19 vaccination status or be placed on unpaid leave.”
The mandate has already caused a crisis in policing, which is already strained in the crime-plagued city.
“Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President John Catanzara said it’s not just his union but first responders, firefighters and labor unions that oppose the mandate,” the Fox News report outlined. “He has instructed officers to file for exemptions to receiving vaccines and provided instructions for what officers should do if given a direct order to report on the city portal their vaccination status.”
“Both sides have since taken legal action against each other,” the report added. “A judge has granted the city’s request for a temporary injunction barring Catanzara from making any public comments that encourage FOP members to disobey the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate until the next hearing on the city’s lawsuit on Oct. 25.”
WATCH:
NEW: Crowd Boo’s Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pic.twitter.com/OvnZGmnH62
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