Happy Saturday! Here's another edition of my weekend column for WPRI.com -- as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to [email protected] and follow me on Twitter, Threads and Facebook. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Nesi's Notes SIGN UP NOW 1. Generational change is happening in Rhode Island, and that includes organized labor. Two longtime faces of the state's union movement -- AFL-CIO President George Nee, who is retiring, and the late Council 94 President Mike Downey, who died last month -- are being succeeded by younger men, Patrick Crowley and Michael McDonald. Rhode Island has seen a decrease in union strength over recent decades, just like other states have: the share of Rhode Island workers who are union members fell from 23% in 1984 to 16% in 2022, with the AFL-CIO currently representing about 80,000 workers. As for labor's political muscle -- a source of pride to union leaders and consternation for their critics -- Crowley suggests it's not as overwhelming as sometimes portrayed. "If it were true, there are a couple of things that I would change today," he said on this week's Newsmakers, citing higher tax rates on upper-income residents as one example. Yet labor leaders insist they're not anti-business, either, even if they're often pitted against corporate lobbyists at the State House. Nee put it this way in his retirement letter: "We achieve our maximum effectiveness when we are pro-business, pro-growth, pro-labor and pro-union." Crowley said he agrees with Nee on that. "If we don't have a vibrant business community, we're not going to have the jobs that our members perform," he said. "Now, we may have different opinions on how to get there than the business community. But we're not on opposite sides on major issues, because our members earn the wages they do because we have a vibrant business community." 2. It will be a little while before Rhode Islanders have more clarity on whether Hasbro will stay or go. Governor McKee's team is meeting internally to craft a pitch for CEO Chris Cocks, with some in Pawtucket suggesting the old Apex as a new HQ, and Mayor Smiley floating Capital Center if the company wants to move to Providence. (McKee is out of state on vacation until Oct. 5, so don't expect any big news before he returns.) Meanwhile, state leaders' lack of awareness about the thinking in the Hasbro C-suite has raised questions about whether they're keeping tabs on CVS Health, the state's biggest publicly traded company. CVS CEO Karen Lynch, like Cocks, lacks longstanding ties to Rhode Island -- she spent years across the border in Hartford as a top executive at Aetna, now owned by CVS. And while Lynch and McKee came into their current positions almost simultaneously in early 2021, the governor's office tells me the pair have never held an in-person meeting, only two phone calls. (One was at the end of this year's legislative session, when Lynch successfully lobbied McKee to veto the noncompetes bill; the other was early on, about vaccinations.) Also like Hasbro, CVS is going through business challenges, recently announcing plans to cut costs by another $2 billion. But CVS spokesperson Mike DeAngelis dismissed any suggestion that the company would shift its home base out of Woonsocket, though it may add jobs elsewhere, too. "Rhode Island will continue to be our headquarters," DeAngelis told me Friday. "We’ve also had corporate hubs in other states for many years." McKee spokesperson Olivia DaRocha added that McKee has "a good relationship with CVS," noting that he worked with the company to significantly expand its footprint when he was mayor of Cumberland. 3. More business news: Cox Communications is suing the R.I. Commerce Corp. over how it's allocating that big $108 million federal broadband grant, and Commerce isn't happy. 4. On the Washington Bridge, there remains a yawning gap between the public desire for concrete information and what's being said. Governor McKee joined Kim Kalunian for a live interview on 12 News at 4 on Tuesday, but had little new to offer beyond saying the bidding process for a new bridge could start "within the next couple of weeks." He spoke hours after a front-page Boston Globe story on the bridge situation set off another round of debate over why the state has struggled so much to deal with the crisis. (McKee, RIDOT Director Peter Alviti and bridge point man Joe Almond all refused to be interviewed for the article.) While Rhode Island's four members of Congress have all stood by McKee publicly, the same isn't true of Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss, who represents the Bristol County communities most affected by the bridge closure. "This far into this disaster, there needs to be much more clarity, and there needs to be much more confidence in leadership than we’re seeing right now," Auchincloss told my colleague Kayla Fish, echoing what he told the Globe team. At the same time, reporters are also struggling to get answers about what caused the pause in demolition of the old bridge and how long it's going to be on hold. Both RIDOT and the attorney general's office denied an Access to Public Records Act request by our Tim White to release the letter ordering the pause, citing attorney-client privilege. 5. The Washington Bridge is hardly the only American infrastructure project that is taking a frustratingly long time. Byron Tau, a reporter at the new outlet NOTUS, is out with a piece examining why the United States struggles to build anything nowadays. 6. Providence state Sen. Sam Zurier was clearly taken aback by the ferocious pushback he received from AG Peter Neronha for suggesting the AG should use his position in the state's Washington Bridge litigation to release documents about the topic. It was the latest example of Zurier, who was first elected in 2021, trying to force a public conversation even if it puts him at odds with other powerful individuals and groups. In another recent example, Zurier used one of his widely read weekly newsletters to push back on the arguments against a constitutional convention that are being advanced by left-leaning organizations he otherwise aligns with, like the AFL-CIO and the ACLU, ahead of this November's referendum. Zurier's fellow Senate Democrat Jonathon Acosta praised his colleague publicly for having "at least started a conversation" about a potential convention, something Acosta said the Rhode Island Democratic Party "wants us to blindly oppose." 7. What the heck is going on with Coventry's town finances? Eli Sherman investigates. 8. Eye on Washington ... Gina Raimondo drew criticism for saying voters should "extinguish" Donald Trump ... Jack Reed is skeptical about Kamala Harris's proposed filibuster carve-out for abortion rights ... Sheldon Whitehouse brought Joe Shekarchi to address a Senate Budget Committee hearing on housing affordability ... Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo split on the House GOP's Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, with Magaziner voting yes and Amo voting no; Jake Auchincloss and Bill Keating also voted no. 9. Governor McKee continues to keep up a regular fundraising schedule as he works to strengthen his position ahead of the 2026 election. On Monday, his office disclosed that he was headed to Boston in the evening for "a private event," which the Projo's Kathy Gregg later confirmed was organized in part by lobbyist and consultant Anthony Ravosa. McKee's campaign is also selling tickets to what they're billing as the "First Annual Gov. Dan McKee Fall Barbecue," which will take place at Exeter's Schartner Farms the day after McKee is due to return to Rhode Island. 10. All four of Rhode Island's bond referendum questions now have active campaigns underway to support them, following this week's launch of a Yes on 5 effort to support the $10 million arts bond. The New Harbor Group is working on two campaigns -- Question 2 (higher education) and Question 4 (environment and ports) -- and the firm's founder, David Preston, reports a Yes on 2 TV ad will air during this weekend's Patriots game, just as a Yes on 4 spot did on Sept. 15. As part of its work, New Harbor commissioned the firm SocialSphere to conduct a poll of 600 Rhode Island voters in late August. The survey put Kamala Harris up 18 points over Donald Trump, and also found just 28% of Rhode Islanders think the state is moving in the right direction, while 42% think it's on the wrong track and 24% say things are mixed. Preston's clients had to be happy with some of the other results: about 60% of voters view Quonset's Port of Davisville positively, while almost none view it negatively, and 62% support further development of offshore wind farms. 11. Lifespan will officially become Brown University Health on Oct. 15. 12. People in the news ... Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green is poised to get a new three-year contract ... members of the Providence City Council elected Pedro Espinal and Sue AnderBois as their new majority leader and deputy majority whip, respectively ... URI President Marc Parlange hailed "a year of tremendous growth and success" at the school ... Rhode Island Housing has hired Ben Frost as president of proactive development, a new job aimed at speeding up home construction.  13. Congratulations to our retired WPRI 12 colleague Sean Daly on his induction Thursday night into the Rhode Island Radio & TV Hall of Fame -- you can watch Sean's acceptance speech here. Congrats as well to Sean's fellow inductees: Betty Jo Cugini-Greene, Chris Di Paola, Joe Hassett, Dan Yorke and Paul Zangari. 14. Mark your calendars for Oct. 23: Inside Elections editor/publisher Nathan Gonzales will join me on stage at RIPEC's annual meeting for a closer look at the political outlook leading up Election Day. Join us! 15. Take a moment to remember two legends lost this week. If you've never seen Maggie Smith with Carol Burnett, you're in for a treat. And if you've never heard the Benny Golson album "Just Jazz" (with Bill Evans on piano), you're in for another one. 16. Set your DVRs: This week on Newsmakers — the AFL-CIO's Patrick Crowley and Council 94's Mike McDonald. Watch Sunday at 5:30 a.m. on WPRI 12 and 10 a.m. on Fox Providence, or listen on the radio Sunday at 6 p.m. on WPRO. You can also subscribe to Newsmakers as a podcast via Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you back here next Saturday. Ted Nesi ([email protected]) is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi's Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Twitter, Threads and Facebook.