Published 14 May, 2011
On May 12 the streets of the New York City financial district rang with the chants of 20,000 people including transit workers, teachers, students and community activists who disrupted the normal work day to tell the big banks to pay up and stop the cuts to public services.
The vibrant and diverse crowd represented all walks of life in New York and was a collective expression of outrage with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed city budget that would make huge cuts while the biggest and richest banks and investors in the world dodge taxes and rake in billions of dollars in profits. Over 36 unions and community organizations came together to organize the event and build a unified front against the proposed budget and soaring inequality.
TWU members from Local 100 and other New York area locals representing the transit and air divisions, including Local 252 and 501, marched to oppose the budget cuts that would weaken the social safety net in the city and put working families at risk. The budget proposal would hurt public transit and be devastating to education; Mayor Bloomberg’s budget would put nearly 6,000 public school teachers out of a job.
TWU members saw this not just as a fight for New York City, but more broadly against unchecked corporate greed and attacks on the middle class occurring in states and cities across the nation.
“I am out here today because we believe workers rights equal human rights and that if we don’t come together today and start protesting and start making some noise they will be able to do what they did in Wisconsin and Ohio,” said Donald Denison, TWU Local 234 in Philadelphia, PA, who joined the rally in New York. “The fight is now and America needs to wake up, otherwise we will be set back 100 years.”
Groups convened in eight different locations around Manhattan based on issues ranging from transit to housing to jobs and then marched to Wall Street where the huge crowd convened to hold teach-ins, play music and chant slogans. The crowd wound through the narrow streets with colorful signs, drums and whistles as bankers and stock traders watched from their offices.
The TWU contingent marched with the transportation and energy group that included environmentalists and other transit supporters. The group converged with immigration advocates, other unions like SEIU and CWA, housing activists and teachers.
At moments the situation got heated as people spilled into the streets and engaged in civil disobedience and blocked traffic. Still, the demonstration was overwhelming peaceful and orderly.
Protestors were sending a message to the big corporations that they need to pay their fair share and that people will not standby while inequality skyrockets and millionaires buy off American democracy. The financiers who caused the economic crisis are now making millions but workers and communities are still bearing the costs. In 2010, the average CEO of a top 500 company received a total compensation package of over $11 million- a 23.4% increase in one year. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate hovers around 9% and workers’ wages and benefits have stagnated.
The May 12 mobilization also sent a message to politicians that people will hold them accountable and that budgets cannot be balanced on the backs of the middle class. Mayor Bloomberg, along with other Mayors and Governors, are claiming the public coffers are empty and that savings have to come from the pockets of public workers and that the services ordinary American rely on must be slashed. Meanwhile, these same politicians are proposing tax cuts for the wealthy, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has rejected a tax on New York’s wealthiest residents, and are unwilling to make the people who caused the deficit pay up.
“Why are the balancing the mistake on Wall Street on the backs of working people?” said Christine Williams, Local 100. “Enough is enough we are not taking it any more. We are pushing back.”