By Natalia Alamdari
A national labor leader is joining the calls for Rep. Gerald Brady’s resignation, this time calling for him to step down from his role as executive director of the Delaware AFL-CIO. This comes after the Wilmington lawmaker’s use of an anti-Asian slur in an email sparked backlash from legislators and community organizations.
Liz Shuler, national president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement on Friday that she was “sickened” by Brady’s “despicable remarks,” and called for his immediate resignation from the union chapter.
The AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the country. Brady has served as the Delaware AFL-CIO executive director since 2003, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“The AFL-CIO and I are committed to ending discrimination and bigotry in all its forms,” Shuler said via Twitter. “Every single union member must come together to root out hate – from inappropriate language to acts of violence. America’s labor movement must use our position of trust to lead by example.”
This isn’t the first time Delaware AFL-CIO leadership has faced backlash for controversial incidents. In 2020, Delaware AFL-CIO President James Maravelias shared two Facebook posts deemed xenophobic and anti-Semitic.
The national AFL-CIO did not call for his resignation at the time. His posts were condemned by the Anti-Defamation League.
This week, the Philadelphia chapter of the Asian Pacific Americans Labor Alliance also joined the ranks of local organizations calling for Brady’s resignation from public office.
The Anti-Defamation League of the Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey and Delaware region said this week that Brady’s comments were inexcusable for any elected official, but were even more troubling given the recent increase of hate crimes against the Asian American community.
The organization is calling on the Legislature to strip Brady of his leadership positions and seats on the Judiciary Committee and Public Safety and Homeland Security Committees in the House.
“Rep. Brady’s language is profoundly offensive towards women, the Asian American Pacific Islander community and all people of conscience in his district and beyond,” said Shira Goodman, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
The calls for the Democratic lawmaker’s resignation stem from a June 27 email exchange between Brady and an out-of-state advocate regarding legislation intended to protect sex workers.
The advocate had shared a study about how the presence of strip clubs led to a decrease in sex crimes in New York City police precincts and called on Delaware lawmakers to pass legislation to protect sex workers. The study made no mention of Asian women.
Brady responded from his official government email address, only instead of forwarding the email to a private citizen whom Brady knows, Brady hit reply, emailing the advocate a response with jokes about sex acts and an anti-Asian slur.
In Delaware, lawmaker emails are not public record. The email was shared with Delaware Online/The News Journal.
In the days after, House leaders stated that while Brady would not be ordered to resign, he must take sensitivity courses and reach out to the Asian American community to make amends and rebuild trust.
Board members at the Delaware Chinese American Association and Chinese American Community Center said they didn’t hear from Brady until after the two organizations emailed legislators and the governor demanding his resignation.
Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton was the first lawmaker to call for Brady’s resignation. She was later joined by Sens. Sarah McBride and Laura Sturgeon, as well as Rep. Eric Morrison.
“The words we use signify the values we hold, and the increase in violence against the AAPI community we’ve seen in our country is directly tied to the language and rhetoric being used by elected officials and people with public platforms,” Wilson-Anton wrote in her statement demanding Brady step down. “Rep. Brady published an apology and announced he wouldn’t seek reelection. He admits his actions were harmful and betrayed the public’s trust in him.”
Should Brady resign, the Fourth District seat would go to a special election. Whoever wins would hold the seat for the duration of Brady’s term, which is up for reelection in 2022. The winner would serve only one session in the state Legislature.
The Legislature has yet to publicly confirm if Brady is undergoing an ethics investigation, but all signs point to yes after Wilson-Anton told members of the Asian American community that she was in the process of filing an ethics complaint.
But until the House Ethics Committee delivers a report to the full House, no House member can comment on whether a complaint has officially been filed and an investigation is even happening.
“Ethics rules mandate confidentiality of any information received by the Committee,” Drew Volturo, a House spokesman said. “This would cover committee members and House members, and would include the complaint itself.”
As of Friday, House leadership maintained they could not comment further at this time.