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Thursday, September 29, 2011

New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) joins Occupy Wall Street


The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing and spreading to more cities and organizations; not sure what will come out of it but it could be the start of something big.

According to Daily Kos, The New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to support the Wall Street Protestors at their meeting last night.
A member of TWU Local 100 told a reporter that they would join the protest Friday at 4PM.
Here's more about them from their website:
The TWU has four main divisions: Railroad; Gaming; Airline; Transit; and Utility, University and Service. The Union has 114 autonomous locals representing over 200,000 members and retirees in 22 states around the country.
Occupy Wall Street has been picking up some decent support from unions in the past few days. Yesterday we reported that the Teamsters Union declared their support for protestors, and we also found out that the United Pilots Union had members at the protest demonstrating in uniform.
Today we learned the Industrial Workers of the World put a message of support on their website as well.
UPDATE: Verizon union workers have joined the protestors in NYC.
All of this is good for the protestors, sure, but the bottom line is whether or not these unions can produce bodies. Experience says that when they want to, unions can be quite good at doing that very thing.
And it seems that they're interested. In many of their statements of support, they say that their members are part of "The 99%" that Occupy Wall Street protestors keep talking about.
But what does that even mean? Naturally, we had to get to the bottom of it, so we found the We Are The 99% blog. It's made of a collection of pictures people holding up signs about how the sorry state of the economy has effected them. Here are some examples:
  • A guy in a lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck (you can't see his face) holds a sign saying: "Ivy League medical student over 100,000 in debt committed to a life of helping the homeless and mentally ill. We are the 99%."
  • Another girl holds a sign saying: "They say you can be anything you want if you work hard enough. The truth is you can only be what you want if you can pay enough. Only 20 and already drowning in debt because I want to follow my dreams. I am the 99%."
  • Another woman holds up a sign saying: "I'm a single mom of four, college graduate 3.6 GPA, shelf stocker, I go hungry daily, I am the 99%. Occupy Wall Street.
Now for your protest update: When we checked in on the live feed around 9:30 this morning, the protestors were marching, playing drums and chanting: "All day, all week occupy Wall Street!"
A cop briefly interrupted them and told them that they were "invited" to stay on the sidewalk and the drumming continued to the sound of applause cheers of "YAY the sidewalk!"
Also, good old Michael Moore will be giving an interview from the protest tonight on MSNBC at 8 PM.
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Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-massive-union-just-voted-to-side-with-the-wall-street-protesters-2011-9?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=clusterstock#ixzz1ZNxoYmGC

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