#OWS and the U.S. Labor Movement (Mark Nowak in MRZine)

[struggle4progress]

... "I personally came down here because I've basically been waiting for about three years, ever since the financial crash and the bailouts and the bonuses, I've just been waiting for something to explode," a New York union ironworker told me in Zuccotti Park yesterday. "Personally, I was just full of rage and wanted to just explode and demonstrate it. And I felt like I was isolated," he continued, "and I didn't realize that there were a million other people that felt the same way. I was wondering where they were. Why aren't the people taking to the streets with pitchforks?"

Big labor stands to learn a very important lesson from the young workers and the disenfranchised, unemployed, working- and middle-class occupiers of Wall Street. It's the same lesson they should have learned three years ago from workers who occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory on Chicago's Goose Island. Working people, particularly young, immigrant, and disenfranchised workers, don't want rallies, slogans, and press releases. They want militant action.

"I came down here. On my own," one young union worker emphasized. "I saw a couple other union tradespeople sitting together. I sat down with them and we formed a little impromptu unit." But this worker also stressed how important it was for his union sisters and brothers not to wait for the union hierarchy to bring their members down to Wall Street: "We've got a sign and hardhats lying around so that other union people will see that we're here. So that union people will feel comfortable that it's not just a bunch of hippies and anarchists. A little area where union people will feel comfortable and bring their friends." ...

The workers I spoke with in Zuccotti Park felt it was incredibly important that trade unions' participation in Occupy Wall Street "originates in the rank and file" and that "the leadership is going to follow, not lead." There's a huge union presence here, one worker pointed out, "but it's not official. It's not everyone with banners and matching t-shirts. There's union people all over the place. They're just incognito." ...

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/nowak111011.html

[OHdem10]

1. It is in the News on Television. The people know the Unions are

there, if that is any consolation.