So far in the mayor’s race, Vince Gray has won nearly all of the announced union endorsements. Just today, the construction unions in the D.C. Building Trades Council endorsed his run for re-election. But now Vincent Orange has a union behind him: the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400.

In a press release, Local 400 president Mark Federici calls Orange “a fighter for D.C.’s working families.” Federici’s union, which claims 40,000 members in the D.C. area, represents many of the grocery store workers who pushed for the failed Large Retailer Accountability Act that Orange supported. Federici praised Orange for backing the bill and the successful minimum wage increase to $11.50 an hour.

“These achievements make public service gratifying,” Orange says in the statement.

But Federici isn’t just handing out plaudits. He also takes digs at Gray and Muriel Bowser for opposing the LRAA (although, interestingly, not fellow LRAA opponent and mayoral hopeful Tommy Wells).

“Unlike Mayor Vincent Gray and Council Member Muriel Bowser, Vincent Orange stood with Washington workers rather than an Arkansas-based behemoth,” Federici says in the statement. “We need a mayor who values the well-being of D.C. residents more than the money of multi-billion dollar multinational corporations.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery