Mass march to converge on Wall Street May 12
By
Larry Hales
New York
Published Apr 21, 2011 8:34 PM
On May 12, which falls on a Thursday and is a full week after the New York City
budget proposal will be released by billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a
coalition of city unions and community organizations will converge on Wall
Street. It will be the second mass demonstration to target Wall Street in a
span of two-and-a-half months.
The group, led by the United Federation of Teachers, plans to converge on Wall
Street from seven different locations in the downtown area. Details are sparse
at this point, but on Wall Street there will be teach-ins and more protests
against austerity and the attacks on public sector unions, especially
teachers.
Within its resolution in support of the May 12 mobilization, the UFT states,
“In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has launched a ‘stealth
Wisconsin gambit,’ threatening thousands of unnecessary and
unconscionable teacher layoffs for the sole purpose of passing legislation
which would eviscerate the right of New York City teachers to due process and
create de facto, ‘at will’ employment, allowing teachers to be
fired for any reason or no reason at all.”
Bloomberg has threatened to lay off more than 4,500 teachers in New York and
has been trying to dismantle the rule of “last in, first out,”
which guarantees protection for experienced teachers with seniority.
Many other public sector unions and organizations are beginning to show support
for May 12. Such a protest is needed as part of the process of building a
massive fightback of working people against a program of austerity. In fact,
many more actions will be needed like this one.
Increasingly, Wall Street will become a target of these protests, especially in
New York, where there is a struggle to reinstate the millionaires’ tax
and for the state to keep the monies it collects from the stock transfer tax to
use for peoples’ needs instead of giving the billions of dollars back to
the superrich.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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