Ismail Ahmed had spent last fall canvassing for Democratic candidates in Alexandria, but now he was speaking up against them.
Lawmakers in this D.C. suburb were getting ready to vote on a major riverfront redevelopment project, and Ahmed wanted them to ensure service jobs at the site would pay well — better than the $11-an-hour, part-time gig as a hotel shuttle driver that he quit in 2020.
With that goal looking increasingly tenuous, the 39-year-old Ethiopian immigrant made his final pitch at a city council meeting earlier this month: “We don’t have any good-paying jobs in Alexandria,” he said. And if an on-site hotel couldn’t offer high wages, then city lawmakers should bar any kind of hotel there.
That is the unusual message his labor union, Unite Here, has been pushing as it tries to make inroads into local politics in Northern Virginia — the most liberal pocket of a state long known for its hostility to organized labor.
Facing gridlock in a divided General Assembly, Ahmed and other union members have instead looked to the entirely Democratic Alexandria City Council, pressuring lawmakers to require higher wages at new hotels popping up in their city — or to keep those hotels from popping up at all.
For an aggressive union that is putting more of its resources south of the Potomac River, it’s a stark change in strategy — one meant to benefit from the development booming across Northern Virginia.
And for Alexandria’s city lawmakers, all proud liberals who have fashioned...
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