NYC Central Labor Council takes on Wall St.

Responding to the rising anger of its members, the New York City Central Labor Council held an emergency demonstration Sept. 25 near the Wall St. stock exchange to protest the anti-worker bailout bill that appeared to be sailing through Congress.

Wall Street, NYC, Sept. 29. WW photos: G. Dunkel

With scarcely two days’ notice, more than 1,500 people showed up for the lunch-hour rally, which drew both national and international attention in the midst of hundreds of anti-bailout protests. For the U.S. labor movement to act quickly on a political issue is very unusual.

A number of Wall St. workers listened from the sidewalk. A sizable number of construction workers from lower Manhattan projects extended their lunch break in order to attend.

“We can’t afford any more mistakes from this administration,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the crowd. “We must put working families first in line.”

Most of the speakers were leaders of the major unions that attended: United Federation of Teachers; District Council 37 of the State, County and Municipal Employees; building trades; airline machinists; Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York; and transit workers. The crowd responded to those who were the most militant against the bankers.

A Machinists union vice-president spoke from his members’ experience: “Congress negotiates like shit. ... They negotiated with the airlines and gave them buyouts. And you know what was in it for the workers? Zero. They cut our pensions and salaries. Well, we’ve heard enough, and we’ve paid enough, and we can’t take it anymore. There’s no money for health care, but trillions for a bailout? With Congress negotiating? If they can’t do it, we’ll kick them out like the CEOs.” This was met with loud cheers from the crowd.

Department Store Local 338 President John Durso went on similarly: “What about pensions, schools, health care and infrastructure? Where’s the money for that? These guys run companies down, then get golden parachutes. What about your mortgage? There has to be oversight and the union movement must stand up for working people. Look to your left, look to your right. ... That’s who will be standing up for you, not the guys down the block or in Washington.”

Barbara Bowen, president of PSC-CUNY, American Federation of Teachers Local 2334, drew parallels between the administration’s rush to demand authority over $700 billion and their rush, five years ago, for authority to invade Iraq. “Yes, they should solve the problem—but not on our backs!” The CUNY higher education system is facing deep budget cuts, which will mean layoffs and speed-ups.

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now speaker Bertha Lewis got one of the loudest responses when she said, “If they don’t give us a bail out for Main Street, they will be shocked when we shut this country down!” The crowd roared its approval.

While the leaders who spoke did not make a point of calling for support for presidential candidate Barack Obama, the rally ended with a call to do so, which also got very loud cheers.

Some of the hand-made signs were sharper than the speeches. An ironworker’s sign read, “No golden parachutes—lead boots.” “No blank check for Wall Street” was popular.

One sign summed up the mood: “Let me get this straight: $700 billion for Wall St.; $700 billion for Iraq War; No money for health care, schools, housing, CUNY, subways.”