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| Local 814 Teamsters in Foley Square last night. |
Once again the 99% -- Teamsters and Occupy Wall Street -- are taking action against the 1%. Once again Teamster Local 814 and OWS are protesting the callous indifference of one particular segment of the 1%.
Sometimes we call that segment "Sotheby's Socialites." Sometimes we call them "entitled jerks." They are all associated with Sotheby's, the fabulously profitable auction house trying to bust their art handlers' union (and, by the way, whose former CEO never went to prison for the felonies she committed). Sotheby's has become an international symbol of reckless greed because it has thrown 43 art handlers out of work because they refuse to let the company destroy their union.
OWS has given tremendous support to the locked-out art handlers from Local 814. They disrupted auctions. They joined picket lines. They got arrested. They crashed a lavish Sotheby's party and put a damning video of the partygoers' arrogance on youtube. Their efforts put a harsh spotlight on Sotheby's callous treatment of its employees.
Teamsters have supported the Occupy movement on Wall Street as well as throughout the country. Last night, New York Teamsters from Locals 814 and 111 joined OWS supporters in a Foley Square rally. At the same time, Teamsters from Joint Council 7 were preparing to protect Occupy San Francisco from a raid that didn't happen. On Tuesday, the Teamsters General Executive Board unanimously passed a resolution supporting Occupy Wall Street and condemning any effort to shut it down on phony pretenses of public health and safety.
Today the Teamsters and OWS are taking aim at a Sotheby's director, Diana Taylor, who happens to be Mayor Michael Bloomberg's galpal. She is also a director of Brookfield Properties, the company that ordered OWS thrown out of their camp.
The flyer reads,
Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zuccotti Park, decided to have peaceful protestors from Occupy Wall Street forcibly removed its property and jailed.
So who is responsible for this? Diana Taylor, a potential candidate for US Senate and Mayor Bloomberg’s partner, is a Director of Brookfield Properties. Taylor is also a Director of Sotheby’s Auction House--a company that has thrown its 43 art handlers out on the street for over fourteen weeks but doubled its CEO’s salary to $6 million.(Just FYI, some of the other entitled jerks who comprise the Sotheby's 1% include Sotheby's director Danny Meyer, the popular restaurateur who owns the Shake Shack, and Sotheby's board chairman, Michael Sovern, also a Columbia Law School professor.)
Join Occupy Wall Street and Teamsters Local 814 at Brookfield Properties this Friday to protest her treatment of workers and peaceful protestors.
We'll try to keep you posted about the action.
