Jul. 16, 2012
2:20 pm
by W.J. Levay
1 Comment

Filed under: Labor

Show your support for Con Edison workers in their fight for a fair contract by attending a rally and march on Tuesday, July 17. UFT and its allies will be meeting at Con Edison headquarters at 4 p.m. for a rally that is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. The rally will be followed by a march to Union Square.

Members of Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers of America have been without a contract since June 30. Con Edison locked out the 8,500 workers on July 1 and cut off their health care benefits on July 3 at 5 p.m.

Jun. 22, 2012
12:52 pm
by W.J. Levay
2 Comments

Filed under: Labor

Tens of thousands of families depend on UFT family child care providers, who care and educate their children. The work they do is making a profound difference in the lives of those children every day, as evidenced by the three providers profiled in this video. But in the city’s budget negotiations, more than 14,000 child care slots have been put on the chopping block by the mayor.

May. 15, 2012
1:18 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

The Metro New York Labor Communications Council is having its annual convention on June 15, and the lineup is excellent. The morning panel on Occupy Wall Street: Keeping the Message Going will include Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News and Democracy Now!, UAW Local 2110 organizer and OWS activist Mary Clinton, Joe Dinkins of the Working Families Party, and Melissa Ryan of the National Organizing Institute. Nick Unger, veteran labor organizer and author, will moderate.

Lunch and labor communications awards presentation to follow.

Register online »

Download the flier »

Mar. 16, 2012
6:15 pm
by W.J. Levay
2 Comments

Filed under: Labor

Friday, March 23 | 12 noon – 1 p.m.
Washington Place and Greene Street
rememberthetrianglefire.org

Click the image for the PDF flier.

Nov. 15, 2011
2:09 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

There was a time that labor unions and the communities they are part of only went their separate ways. That is no longer possible. Both have realized that in this economic climate alone they are easy pickings for the corporate entities that care only for profits and not one whit for the betterment of the society they seem to own.

Metro New York Labor Communications Council presents a discussion of today’s fight back and the coming together of natural allies.

Wednesday, November 16, 6-8 PM
Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies | SUNY Empire State
325 Hudson Street @ Vandam Street

PANELISTS

• Frances Fox Piven, Professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• Ava Farkas, Coordinator, Living Wage NYC Campaign
• Rev. Que English, President, Senior Pastor, Bronx Christian Fellowship Church; Bronx Clergy Legislative Roundtable; member, Faith Caucus
  Living Wage NYC Campaign
• Chuck Zlatkin, Legislative and Political Director,New York Metro Area Postal Union
• Julio Pabon, President, South Bronx Community Organization

MODERATOR

• Bill Henning, Vice President, CWA Local 1180

LINKS

• Download the flier and spread the word »
• Go to the Facebook event page »

Nov. 8, 2011
10:10 pm
by Leo Casey
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Filed under: Labor

The union-busting law of Ohio Governor Kasich and his Tea Party Republicans, which took away public sector workers’ rights to have a union and bargain collectively, is going down to crushing defeat. The margin has been 63% for repeal, 37% for keeping the law for the last hour.

Nov. 7, 2011
2:04 pm
by W.J. Levay
1 Comment

Filed under: Labor

UFT Legislative Representative Michael Davoli was in Ohio this weekend helping to get the word out to voters that a NO vote on ballot Issue 2 this Election Day is a vote to protect the collective bargaining rights of working Ohioans. He wrote about his experience.

Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011, 6:11 p.m. Oh, what a day to be in Ohio. Today was an absolutely beautiful day to be knocking on doors for an incredibly important cause. The temperature reached into the low sixties, the sun was shining all day, the colors of the fall leaves were peaking and the people were friendly. After landing in Cincinnati late Friday afternoon we headed over to the Ohio AFL-CIO campaign headquarters for a campaign briefing with the AFT campaign staff. There we met up with some of our brothers and sisters from NYSUT locals across New York State who have been out in Ohio for a few days. After getting a late dinner at a classic Cincinnati rib joint it was time to hit the sack in preparation for a few big days of campaigning.

UFT Parent and Community Liaison Nick Cruz signs a "We Are Ohio" pledge at campaign headquarters.

Saturday morning started bright and earlier for the nine of us from New York. After grabbing a quick breakfast we headed over to the IBEW office where over one hundred labor volunteers from across the country were preparing to knock on doors. This was it. This was ground zero for the labor movement in Ohio and the nation. This was where union members — from teachers to police to firefighters and municipal employees — were going to make their stand against the forces of corporate America who were trying to break the backs of working people. We were here to help fight back. More »

Nov. 3, 2011
6:26 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

The New York City Labor Chorus, with 75 members representing over 20 labor unions and district councils, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a performance at Town Hall this Saturday, Nov. 5. See the flier for more information.

Nov. 3, 2011
1:30 pm
by W.J. Levay
1 Comment

Filed under: Labor

Writing for Slate, Yale history professor Beverly Gage argues that Occupy Wall Street should take a cue from the American labor movement:

More ominously, protesters in many cities now face the prospect of sustained police crackdowns, from the hassles of permitting and noise ordinances to the violence that erupted last week in Oakland. There, police used tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets to attack protesters near city hall. One of those bullets fractured the skull of Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, leaving him hospitalized in critical condition. Since then, Olsen has become the chief symbol of Occupy’s new reality: Going up against Wall Street, it turns out, is serious business. And the more serious the Occupy movement gets, the more official and near-lethal hostility it’s likely to encounter.

As they sort out what to do next, the Occupiers might take a page from the history of American labor, the only social movement that has ever made a real dent in the nation’s extremes of wealth and poverty. For more than half a century, between the 1870s and the 1930s, labor organizers and strikers regularly faced levels of violence all but unimaginable to modern-day activists. They nonetheless managed to create a movement that changed the nation’s economic institutions and reshaped ideas about wealth, inequality, and Wall Street power. Along the way, they also helped to launch the modern civil liberties ethos, insisting that the fight to tame capitalism went hand in hand with the right to free speech.

More »

Oct. 20, 2011
11:51 am
by Leo Casey
5 Comments

Filed under: Labor

Over the last few weeks, a small team of New York City building inspectors descended upon UFT headquarters, responding to a mysterious 311 call. Our building has been placed under police surveillance, and at times police have been posted as guards at our doors.

The One Percent appears to be a tad bit irritated by the UFT’s support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. We were one of the unions who took the lead in organizing the October 5^th rally and march which brought out thousands of New York’s working people to express their solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. UFT President Mulgrew has been at Zuccotti Park a number of times, speaking to the assembly, and was joined by AFT President Weingarten on one occasion. Our headquarters are a few blocks away from Zuccotti, and we have provided space for meetings of different groups supporting OWS. We have also given over a major section of our street level space to storage for OWS, for donations of materials and supplies sent to them and for the stowing of personal belongings on the morning when Bloomberg threatened to “cleanse” Zuccotti. This was the space that the building inspectors suddenly needed to inspect.

Oh, and last weekend, we sent forty sandwiches left from our conference for charter school educators over to Zuccotti. I had not thought much of that donation until Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino called the UFT on Monday. It seems that Gasparino had visited Zuccotti over the weekend and decided that it was a haven for communists. And he had witnessed the masses at Zuccotti eating our sandwiches. Why, he demanded to know, was the UFT providing sustenance to violent revolutionaries? Confronted with the results of Gasparino’s crackerjack investigative reporting, I decided that it is time to confess. Yes, I authorized that sandwich smuggling operation. More »

Oct. 6, 2011
1:01 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

Not surprisingly, Jon Stewart last night provided some of the most thoughtful coverage of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, which yesterday was bolstered by union members in a big rally and march from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park.

The Daily Show‘s bread and butter is its effortless exposure of the rank hypocrisy of Fox News — at this point, for Daily Show writers, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Here (at the 3:20 mark) Sean Hannity is shown praising the “quintessentially American”-ness of Tea Party protests in 2009, then declaring yesterday that the Occupy Wall Streeters “really don’t like freedom.”

Another highlight is a clip of one eloquent protester being interviewed by a Fox News reporter (around 1:50):

After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for maybe, I don’t know, some participation in our democracy.

[UPDATE: That activist is Jesse LaGreca and the NY Observer has video of the rest of his interaction with the Fox News producer.]

The segment also does a nice job summarizing the criticism mainstream media outlets have heaped on the movement for what they see as a lack of a clear message, demands or proposed solutions. To those talking heads, media theorist Douglas Rushkoff says, “You don’t get it.”

Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street’s many teach-ins this morning [...]

Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. Whether we agree with them or not, we all know what they are upset about, and we all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. What upsets banking’s defenders and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals in the traditional language of campaigns. More »

Oct. 4, 2011
5:58 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

The UFT is participating in a community-labor march tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 5 as we demand that the wealthiest New Yorkers pay their fair share of taxes. Albany must renew the state millionaire’s tax that is due to expire on Dec. 31.

At 4:30 p.m., members will gather near the UFT banner in Foley Square. Marchers will step off at 5 p.m. from Foley Square and head to Zuccotti Park, where they will be welcomed by the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have created an encampment to denounce corporate greed and the grossly unequal distribution of wealth in this country. Their rallying cry: “We are the 99 percent.”

View the march route »

Occupy Wall Street »

We Are the 99 Percent »

Sep. 21, 2011
4:57 pm
by W.J. Levay
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Filed under: Labor

On Sept. 19, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement in support of President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act:

Today President Obama said some things that very much needed to be said. He said we need to focus first and foremost on creating jobs, and he laid out a plan for doing just that. He said that asking millionaires like Warren Buffett to start paying their fair share in taxes is not class warfare, but simple math. He said Social Security does not contribute one dime to the deficit and Social Security benefits must not be cut. He said drawing down from Iraq and Afghanistan would save $1.1 trillion over 10 years, which the Super Committee could use to avoid any cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. And he explained once again how budget surpluses under President Clinton turned into budget deficits under President Bush: through two wars that were never paid for, tax cuts for wealthy people that we couldn’t afford, and the effects of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression that was caused by a failed economic philosophy that Republicans in Congress are now trying to revive.

We call on Congress to immediately pass the President’s proposal for job-creating investments, to ask the wealthy to start paying their fair share, to focus on the true causes of our long-term deficits, to reject any cuts to Medicaid or Social Security or Medicare benefits, and to stop scapegoating federal and postal employees and retirees for problems they did not cause.