Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Verizon, Occupy Everything

Posted on October 22nd, 2011 | by A Worker |

West Street in New York City rocked with the rhythms of worker’s power on Friday night as about 1000 Verizon workers and their allies rallied to stand up for the 99 percent and to say no to corporate greed.  The Verizon building at 140 West Street feeds much of  financial district.  If this building was somehow to be brought offline Wall Street would be crippled.  Trading would come to a halt.  Yeah, that’s right telecom workers can shut down Wall Street and bring the one percent to their knees.

Occupy, Occupy, occupy

The protesters headed out and marched down Church Street to #OccupyWallStreet and then boogied on down to a neighborhood Verizon Wireless Store to hold a rally.  Chris Shelton from the CWA (Communication Workers of America) spoke about the importance of the OWS folks and why union workers were joining with the fight to reign in the outrageous profits of the one percent.

Workers Rally at VZW Store

Most union leaders prefer not to go on strike, but despite that the CWA and IBEW leaders decided to strike in August when the Verizon contract expired.  The strike had a limited goal of getting the company flunky negotiators to get real at the bargaining table and to extend the expired contract while the talks went on.  After two weeks the company agreed to comply, but the talks have gone nowhere in the two months since striking workers have returned to their jobs.

On September 17 a rag tag bunch of mostly young rebels occupied Zucotti Park  and spawned a world wide movement for economic and social change.  They have changed the debate in the country focusing their and the world’s ire on the one percent aka the ruling class.  This of course was  also the theme of the unions from Verizon: that Verizon workers were fighting not only for themselves but for the whole working/middle class against the rapacious corporate greed of Verizon bosses and the rest of effete elite corporate class.   The merging of these two groups is a no brainer.

It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like the unions may be moving to left a bit.  They have no choice because many union members are moving that way themselves.  This is why the one percenters like Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam will loose.  Although many working class folks have had their heads up their asses for many years the bosses have done us a favor by keeping up the  attacks — piling more and more misery on the backs of us who do the productive work and create all the value in the world.  Now the  the workers have awoken and are beginning to rise.  One percenters beware!

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