If you've seen it, you won't soon forget the video of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's insufferable girlfriend insulting Teamsters. They actually have the audacity to want to keep their jobs, their wages and their pay -- something Diana Taylor views as an unacceptable demand. What's worse, she delivered her insults in a public meeting about a new park that's supposed to benefit New York's working families. Her dislike of working families couldn't be clearer.
Taylor was chairing a meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust when two Teamsters stood up. They had been locked out of their jobs by Sotheby's, a wildly profitable pawn shop for the 1 percent. Teamsters Dave Martinez and Julian Tysh asked Taylor what she had against working families and why she wouldn't do the right thing.
"Let them eat cake," would have been better than what she actually said:
I have one thing to say to you. I have had one conversation with [Sotheby's President] Bill Ruprecht about this, and I told him that if he accedes to any of your demands, I will resign from the board.Yesterday, Teamster General President Jim Hoffa wrote a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo asking him to fire Taylor from the board of Hudson River Park Trust. Hoffa makes a compelling case:
Ms. Taylor thinks it’s an unreasonable ‘demand’ for middle-class workers to want a job, a union and a stable standard of living. She may represent the views of 1 percent of New York’s wealthiest, but she doesn’t represent the 99 percent whose interests she is entrusted to represent as chair of the Hudson River Park Trust.
Someone who is so hostile to the well-being of New York’s working families shouldn’t be overseeing a public project intended to improve their lives. Ms. Taylor’s expertise may be helpful in developing this park, but she spoke in public with such contempt for working people who have only stood up for their rights that I think it is no longer appropriate for her to continue in that role.
That she embarrassed Sotheby’s is between her and Sotheby’s. But she publicly attacked the working people she is supposed to be helping. The State of New York owes it to the vast majority of its people to remove her from the Hudson River Park Trust.Amen.
