Giant New York labor rally puts mayor on notice
The downtown stretch of Broadway in front of New York City
Hall was jammed May 12 with the biggest labor protest held in
the city in many years.
Organizers announced 50,000 workers were there to demand an
end to downsizing and budget cutting. Most of them came from
unions repre senting city, state and federal workers.
Anger over Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attacks on labor at a
time of an unprecedented city budget surplus fueled the
protest. The message of many signs and speeches was, "It's our
turn now."
The huge rally was a promising show of force by the New York
labor move ment after years of accom modating the reactionary
Giuliani administration. There was a spirit of struggle in the
air.
Many workers--clearly elated at the turnout and the show of
solidarity among so many unions--said they were there to show
Giuliani and Wall Street that they're ready to fight.
Contract negotiations are approaching for city workers, and
there's anger over the deals the mayor made last time,
especially with AFSCME District Council 37 leader Stanley Hill.
The national union replaced Hill with a trustee after it was
shown that local union leaders had padded the last contract
vote to accept a rotten offer from Giuliani.
The DC 37 trustee, Lee Saunders, was the major force behind
the May 12 rally. Saunders and many other union leaders,
including Service Em ployees President Andy Stern, spoke.
There was a big contingent of hos pital workers from 1199
National Health and Human Service Employees Union/service
Employees. There were also thousands of workers from the
construction trades, especially members of the Electrical
Workers, and a big turnout from the Teamsters. The spirit of
unity was strong in a crowd of men and women of all
nationalities that reflected the New York work force.
In another first, thousands of members of the United
Federation of Teachers gathered at the Brooklyn headquarters of
the New York Board of Education and marched across the Brooklyn
Bridge to join the rally.
Police did their best to break the crowd up into separate
sections with barricades, as they have done at recent rallies
against police brutality. But that didn't dampen the militant
spirit of the workers, whose large numbers demonstrated very
clearly their strength when the union leadership is willing to
call them out.
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