By: Krug Stillo

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman is hammering Gov. Kathy Hochul over her decision to veto a union-backed bill requiring two operators on every MTA train, as he ramps up efforts to peel away labor support from his Democratic rival, the NY Post first reported.

Blakeman, the current Nassau County executive, accused Hochul of turning her back on working New Yorkers by rejecting legislation supported by transit unions, including a measure mandating both a conductor and an operator on all Metropolitan Transportation Authority trains, according to the NY Post first reported. Hochul also vetoed a series of bills aimed at enhancing pensions and benefits for law enforcement officers.

“For too long, the hardworking men and women of New York State have been at a disadvantage because they’ve had a state government that doesn’t understand their needs,” Blakeman told the NY Post first reported, promising a sharp change in direction if elected governor.

Blakeman said he would work closely with union leaders to ensure better pay and benefits, arguing that a stronger economy would allow the state to properly compensate its workforce, the NY Post first reported.

During a Sunday appearance on 77 WABC’s “Cats Roundtable,” Blakeman also took aim at Hochul’s spending priorities, claiming the state could afford more generous treatment of workers if it hadn’t shelled out as much as $4.5 billion over the past three years to house and feed migrants, including illegal immigrants, who crossed the southern border, according to the NY Post first reported.

“It’s a policy of you come here, you get more than the residents do,” Blakeman said, criticizing free lodging, food, transportation, and phones for migrants while taxpayers struggle, the NY Post first reported.

Blakeman’s labor outreach comes as he faces steep odds in deep-blue New York, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two-to-one. No GOP candidate has won statewide office since 2002, even as polling shows roughly half of voters say they want a new governor, the NY Post first reported.

The vetoed MTA bill has long been a flashpoint with the Transport Workers Union. While most trains already operate with two-person crews, some shuttle lines run with a single operator under existing labor agreements, according to the NY Post first reported.

TWU President John Samuelsen praised Blakeman for siding with the union, saying thousands of conductors were paying close attention to the issue, the NY Post first reported. Samuelsen argued that one-person train operations make subway travel less safe by removing conductors from trains.

Hochul, however, defended her veto by citing cost and modernization concerns, saying the bill could cost up to $10 million annually while limiting the MTA’s ability to invest in new trains and signals, the NY Post first reported.

Blakeman fired back on social media, saying conductors are a critical line of defense against crime and that he stands “shoulder to shoulder” with TWU Local 100, the NY Post first reported.