In late July, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s appointees on the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) voted to ban Charter Communications, the nation’s second-largest cable company, from the state. The PSC ordered Charter to develop a plan to leave the state and transfer its network to another owner within sixty days, though given the company’s plans to sue to reverse the ruling, it will likely remain in the state beyond that.

Charter, which does business under the brand Spectrum in New York, has an annual net income of nearly $10 billion and total assets of $146.6 billion, earning a place on the Fortune 100 list of largest US companies. Like many cable and telecommunications companies, Charter enjoys a monopoly or near-monopoly in many of the markets where it operates.

What leads a business-friendly Democrat like Cuomo to attack one of the country’s largest corporations? In part, it has to do with the fact that about 1,800 Charter workers represented by IBEW Local 3 have been on strike against the company for over a year. And while Cuomo is no leftist and definitely no friend of the working class, he has begun to pay lip service to progressive causes as a result of facing a far more progressive challenger, Cynthia Nixon, in his reelection bid.