Occupy is working in NY

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Teamsters join 20K march for jobs in NYC

There's only one thing this news report gets wrong: Labor's been doing this for a long time. Occupy Wall Street is joining us -- not the other way around!

Today's Teamster News 12.02.11

For Jobless, Little Hope of Restoring Better Days  New York Times   ...just 7 percent of those who lost jobs after the financial crisis have returned to or exceeded their previous financial position and maintained their lifestyles...
In Recording, American Crystal Sugar President Likens Union Workers to Cancerous Tumor  Minnesota AFL-CIO   ...The already strained relationship between management of American Crystal Sugar Company (ACSC) and its 1,300 locked out workers was dealt another serious blow when recordings of anti-worker statements by ACSC President and CEO Dave Berg were made public this week...
Speaker O'Brien Lies in Press Statement, Unable to Name a Single Business to Move to NH if HB 474 Had Passed  Granite State Progress   ..."Not once has the topic of right-to-work ever come up in all of [their] discussions with New Hampshire businesses and prospective businesses..."
Opinion: N.J. unions will achieve goals by speaking with collective voice  Times of Trenton   ...When our political system gets so out of whack that it stops working for the very people it represents, working- and middle-class voters do what too many politicians have been refusing to do: Come together to restore balance to our economy and our politics...
Wisconsin Recall Drive Surpasses 300,000 Signatures  The Nation   ...What is truly remarkable is where the signatures are coming from: rural and small-town Wisconsin communities are contributing disproportionally high numbers of signatures to the total...
How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street  The Ticket   ..."I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation's foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. "They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism..."
Mayor Bloomberg: ‘I Have My Own Army’  New York Observer   ...“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world..."

Whoa! NYC mayor galpal trashes working people

This woman actually wants to run for the millionaire's club U.S. Senate from New York after making it clear how desperately she wants to trash people who, you know, "work" for a living. In this video, Diana Taylor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's galpal, venomously states her opposition to returning Teamsters to their middle-class jobs after Sotheby's threw them out of work. Marie Antoinette looks like a piker in comparison.

Great campaign slogan: "I'll go to the mat to take away paychecks from hardworking American taxpayers."

Diana Taylor is on the board of the company that evicted Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park AND on the board of Sotheby's. She's clearly acting out her boyfriend's grudge against Occupy Wall Street, who've been working in solidarity with the Sotheby's art handlers from Teamsters Local 814.

Does this women expect ANYONE to vote for her who isn't among the .1 percent?

Teamsters marching for jobs in NYC; 'It's our time'

Our Teamster brothers and sisters in New York are marching for jobs and economic fairness right now. The "March for the 99%" starts at Herald Square downtown and ends at Union Square. We expect there are plenty of  "Stop the War on Workers" signs from Joint Council 16 among the thousands of signs. In fact, we can see the corner of one in this picture of the marchers assembling.

The march is sponsored by the New York Central Labor Council and Occupy Wall Street. If you've been wondering what happened to the Occupy movement after so many camps have been dismantled, well, you may not have noticed the Occupy Phoenix protest of a Benedict Arnold Koch brothers front group in Arizona yesterday, or Occupy DC at the British Embassy, or Occupy Chicago at the British consulate. As The Associated Press reports,

The overnight police raids in Philadelphia and Los Angeles that dismantled two of the nation's biggest Occupy Wall Street encampments leave just a few major "occupations" still going on around the U.S. But activists are already changing tactics and warning of a winter of discontent, with rallies and marches every week.

The camps may bloom again in the spring, organizers said, and next summer could bring huge demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic conventions, when the whole world is watching. But for now they are promoting dozens of smaller actions, such as picketing the president in New York and staging sit-ins at homes marked for foreclosure.

The March of the 99% is pretty big -- we hear tens of thousands of people are there. We learn from Twitter that CUNY students are there en masse, along with SEIU 1199, UAW, teachers, laborers. Also from Twittter:

@elizbruce: Bagpipes, protesters, and #unions, OH MY! #OWS NYC #Labormarch

@JoshHarkinson: My office off Broadway is surrounded by police barricades, cop cars, and helicopters for the #OWS & labor march kicking off at Herald Square

@steffikeith: #OWS union march effective because half these guys look like they would hang in same bar as the cops

@elizbruce: Can hear the chants from the 19th Fl. of the #Flatiron, "What do we want?" "JOBS!" "When do we want it?" "NOW!" #OWS #Labormarch

@mgouldwartofski: "We are the union. The mighty, mighty union." Labor's March of the 99% has made it to Union Sq, tens of thousands strong. #OWS #WorkersPower

Here's the invitation for the March of the 99% on Occupy Wall Street's Facebook Page:

Good Morning: The wealthy elite aka the 1% ask you to stay home today. They want to stay at work late, if you have a job that is. If not, they ask that you watch television, go shopping, or spend time on the computer, alone. Do not question anything. They do not want you to join with thousands of other people who just like you, are feeling then pressure of an economy and government controlled by them. The 1% are asking, no demanding, stay inside. Do not join the growing movement. No, not today.

We say, Disobey. See you in the streets today. It is our time.

The 99% vs. the 1%

Thanks to The Guardian for this awsome animation.

Today's Teamster News 11.21.11

U.S. Sovereignty Usurped by WTO’s COOL Decision  Trade Reform   ...a panel of three foreign diplomats seated by the United Nation’s World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a decision regarding complaints filed against the United States’ country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law that informs U.S. consumers as to the origins of their food...
How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%: Scott Turow  Bloomberg   ...I have an unusual suggestion for how they should next deploy their considerable energies: work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections...
What the Labor Movement Can Learn From an Art Auction  truthout   ...Occupy Wall Street has clearly injected a new set of more innovative tactics into labor's arsenal here in New York City...
Santorum: Labor Unions Are Force For Good…If You’re Iranian  Talking Points Memo   ...At a campaign stop here yesterday, Rick Santorum proposed offering federal government support for labor unions, which he said created a social good. In Iran...
How municipalities used the tools  LaCrosse Tribune   ...Onalaska Mayor Mike Giese was not impressed with the effectiveness of the “tools” Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill gave the city to deal with cuts in state payments to the city, nor with the general approach Walker took in balancing the state budget...
Study supporting tax measure is flawed  Columbia Tribune   ...In a study that is being used to support overhauling Missouri’s state tax system, conservative economics guru Arthur Laffer mixes state and local taxes and misuses technical terms to create rankings for every state...

OWS shines Bat Signal on Verizon Building

On the evening of Nov. 17, an International Day of Action, an estimated 32,500 people marched on the Brooklyn Bridge -- probably the biggest Occupy Wall Street protest yet.

Carrying LED candles in the "Festival of Light," they peacefully walked along the pedestrian walkway on the bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. Suddenly, they saw the Bat Signal -- "99%" -- projected onto the massive blank wall of the Verizon Building. Then the beam rolled through a series of words:

"99% / MIC CHECK! / LOOK AROUND / YOU ARE A PART / OF A GLOBAL UPRISING / WE ARE A CRY / FROM THE HEART / OF THE WORLD / WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE / ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE / HAPPY BIRTHDAY / #OCCUPY MOVEMENT / OCCUPY WALL," then a long list of cities, states and countries and then "OCCUPY EARTH / WE ARE WINNING / IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING / DO NOT BE AFRAID / LOVE."

boing boing interviews Mark Read, the creator of the Bat Signal, who explains how Denise Vega, a single working mother of three, allowed him to project the image from her apartment in subsidized housing. She refused to take money for it -- though he offered -- because "This is for the people."

(Oh, and, by the way, the Associated Press dishonestly describes "Occupy Wall Street" as "a scruffy group that has erupted in violence." These have been peaceful protests. Here's how Wonkette, who actually talked to Occupy Wall Streeters, describes them that night:

There were tons of families with their kids, CUNY students, union workers, and even doctors in lab coats carrying banners demanding better access to health care.)

The Verizon Building was a fitting target for the Bat Signal. Verizon -- a tax dodger -- wants to cut its workers' health and pension benefits. Occupy Wall Street -- as well as the Teamsters and other unions -- have for the past two months participated in direct actions against Verizon in solidarity with its workers, members of the Communications Workers of America.

Holy Corporate Greed, Batman!!

Inspiration Wednesday: 'This Little Light of Mine'

This video, about three weeks old, shows Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie leading Occupy Wall Street in "This Little Light of Mine" at Columbus Circle in New York. Seeger led about a thousand Occupiers in a peaceful 30-block march up Manhattan's West Side. It isn't the greatest video but you get a sense of the march's spirit.

A few more videos of the march can be seen here.

Wrongful punishments on Wall Street

The Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is on a roll today. First, he writes a terrific piece about Occupy Wall Street in which he says,

...my initial impression was that it would not be taken very seriously by the Citibanks and Goldman Sachs of the world. You could put 50,000 angry protesters on Wall Street, 100,000 even, and Lloyd Blankfein is probably not going to break a sweat. He knows he's not going to wake up tomorrow and see Cornel West or Richard Trumka running the Federal Reserve. He knows modern finance is a giant mechanical parasite that only an expert surgeon can remove. Yell and scream all you want, but he and his fellow financial Frankensteins are the only ones who know how to turn the machine off.

That's what I was thinking during the first few weeks of the protests. But I'm beginning to see another angle. Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything.

Read the whole thing here. But also be sure to read Taibbi's story about the judge who finally stood up to Wall Street. Citibank had been caught ripping off its investors for a third time, and stood to get a slap on the wrist from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Federal Judge Jed Rakoff rejected the SEC's proposed settlement. Here's the analogy Taibbi uses to describe what happened:

Imagine a car thief who, when caught driving a stolen Lexus, tells the police he simply stepped into the wrong car and drove off by mistake. Now imagine he tells the same story when, two years later, he’s caught screaming over the GW bridge in a stolen Mercedes.

Then, two years after that, he’s caught on the Cross-Bronx Expressway blasting the stereo in a boosted 7-series BMW. Cops ask him for an explanation. “I must have gotten in the wrong car by mistake,” he says, shrugging. And the cops buy the story and send him home without a charge.

That’s roughly what we’re dealing with with this SEC action. To extend the metaphor just a little further – let’s say that BMW wasn’t even the only car he accidentally drove away that day, but the cops didn’t bother with the others.

In a broad sense, Citigroup did what Goldman Sachs tried to do to YRC before Jim Hoffa exposed the misdeed. Both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs were promoting investments that would fail and trying to profit from those failures. (That is not the way to create jobs, by the way.) In the Citigroup case, Rakoff dumped all over the SEC. Writes Taibbi,

Judge Rakoff balked at the settlement and particularly balked at the SEC’s decision to allow Citi off without any admission of wrongdoing. He also mocked the SEC’s decision to describe the crime as “negligence” instead of intentional fraud, taking the entirely rational position that there’s no way a bank making $160 million ripping off its customers can conceivably be described as an accident.

Read the whole thing here. 

Sotheby's party crasher (video)

Watch this video where the 1% mock the rest of us at a lavish Sotheby's party:

"We are hungry. We are poor. We are coming to your house."

Just sickening.