Occupy Wall Street, unions get their activism together
The Occupy Wall Street protests that began as a nebulous mix of social and economic grievances are becoming more politically organized — with help from some of the country’s largest labor unions.
Labor groups are mobilizing to provide office space, meeting rooms, photocopying services, legal help, food and other necessities to the protesters. The support is lending some institutional heft to a movement that has prided itself on its freewheeling, non-institutional character.
And in return, Occupy activists are pitching in to help unions ratchet up action against several New York firms involved in labor disputes with workers.
In one case, Occupy activists have helped union workers disrupt the rarified environs of Sotheby’s art auction house, which is engaged in a contract dispute with about 40 of its art handlers.
A joint demonstration of Occupy activists and telephone workers is planned for Friday to target Verizon, and Occupy organizers say more unions are reaching out to a newly formed labor relations committee to ask for help in planning future actions.
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Union members and organizers have also pitched in for demonstrations in Boston, Sacramento, St. Louis and Los Angeles. Some union members have been camping out in Los Angeles, and in every location, Trumka said, union halls are being opened to protesters for meetings or respite.
In New York, protesters are storing gear at a teachers [all GOVERNMENT employees] union hall. Some of the committees that have been formed to govern the group are meeting at a union office for City University of New York faculty and staff. SEIU members [40% government GOVERNMENT employees], many of them health-care workers, are pitching in to provide medical support, and other union members are donating rain ponchos, T-shirts, food and water.
SEIU plans to print an edition of the movement’s makeshift newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal.
“I have been shocked at how much support has come from labor,” said DiSalvo, 68, a retired English professor who helped form the Occupy Wall Street labor committee. “I think they feel this is giving their ranks some juice.”
Leaders in both camps say the relationship is sensitive. Occupy activists have made it clear that they would reject any efforts by union officials to draw the new movement into the get-out-the-vote efforts that labor wages in election campaigns.
Unions mobilized in 2008 to help elect Obama, and, despite frustrations with the administration, unions are expected to follow suit again next year.
George Gresham, president of SEIU 1199, the union’s biggest local, said he hopes the coordination with Occupy Wall Street will eventually push the activists toward a focus on the 2012 election.
He said it was “the reality of the world we’re living in now” that “there is going to be an election in a year and a half, and someone is going to come out of that election to lead this country.”
Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees [BIG GOVERNMENT], one of the unions coordinating with Occupy, said AFSCME planned to once again spend as much as $100 million next year to help Obama and other Democrats [the party of BIG GOVERNMENT]. He also said he expected the activists to turn their energy toward the campaign. “What’s the alternative?” he asked.
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