City Hall Protest Unites New York Workforce Among Wisconsin Tensions

By Harrison Golden

NEW YORK - In protest against freshman Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his efforts to remove collective bargaining rights from his state’s public workforce, politicians and union leaders gathered outside City Hall on Wednesday hoping to bring a sense of local and national awareness to the issue.

“We are confronting an assault on labor that is so corrosive, so sweeping, and so destructive that if allowed to succeed, it will roll back nearly a century of American reforms in the workplace,” said Jack Ahern, President of the New York City Central Labor Council. “Dismantling the right to collectively bargain seeks to destroy the very principle many union organizers literally gave their lives to achieve.”

The protests, conducted under less than a full day’s notice, quickly aimed to unite workers from throughout the East Coast against Walker’s new budget proposals, which would not only prevent Wisconsin state employees from negotiating benefits with employers, but would also drastically cut the ability for unions to organize within his state.

“Governor Walker has truly awoken a sleeping giant,” said Jared Reinmuth, member of the Screen Actors Guild and a participant in Wednesday’s City Hall protest. “By connecting the dots here, both the public and private working people will become stronger, and everyone will realize that the wrong people are getting their rights taken away from them.”

In his attempts to follow through with the proposal’s legislation, Walker claims that he is not aiming to decrease the influence of unions on an ideological basis, but rather for the purpose of balancing Wisconsin’s budget and reducing the federal deficit. However, even after the state workers unions agreed to the aspects of the bill pertaining to upcoming rises in health insurance and pension costs, Walker is still continuing to move onward with his plans to stifle union organization. Accordingly, many labor leaders and opposing Democrats feel that the Tea Party-backed Republican Governor’s attempts are more partisan in nature, as union groups are the largest national contributors to the Democratic Party.

“Politics or not, the everyday, hard-working citizens of this great country are going to hurt if this bill follows through,” said Chris Shelton, Vice President of the Communications Workers of America’s New York-based District 1. “State to state and city to city, people need representation for their service. Supporting our Wisconsin friends here at City Hall is just the start. And if today’s turnout means anything, then I think we are stepping ourselves in the right direction.”