Workers representing the United Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO and other unions staged several simultaneous rallies around the Hudson Valley and the state April 4 protesting Albany”™s new stance on “trimming the fat” ”“ a code word for union-busting, according to the booming crowd. There was a minor showing of support for Wisconsin”™s efforts to end what some feel is the unions”™ chokehold on state coffers.
Teachers, plumbers, carpenters, electrical workers, bottlers and other union members waved flags and held up posters at the intersection of Routes 300 and 17K in Newburgh, receiving a lot of thumbs-up support from passing motorists. “We don”™t know what the future will bring,” said Monroe-Woodbury High School teachers Carol Durkin and Eileen Bailey, who showed up to support the United Federation of Teachers as well as their colleagues.
Chambers of commerce unanimously supported the $132.5 billion 2011-12 budget passed by the state Legislature ”“ a plan representing a decrease over last year”™s budget and closing a $10 billion deficit through attrition, consolidation of multiple layers of state government and two new fees enacted to pump up revenue but without raising taxes.
Union workers, however, fear New York will follow the lead of other cash-strapped states and put an end to binding arbitration.
According to a statement by the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation, representing Columbia, Greene, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Sullivan and Ulster counties, the unions chose April 4 for their show of solidarity because it fell on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King”™s assassination in Memphis in 1968. King was in Memphis to support a strike by the city”™s sanitation workers at the time.
“There is an attack on middle-class America that has ironically raised the level of awareness across the country of all those who did not see that the attack is real on the fabric of America and its entire workforce,” Sam Fratto, IBEW Local 363 assistant business agent, said in a statement.
While public opinion from motorists was clearly cheering the sentiments on posters waved by union members on the chilly, damp day, a minority stood apart and showed their support for an end to powerful union interests. “They”™ve abused what Dr. King was fighting for,” said one anti-union supporter who declined to be named. “He was looking for living wages and decent benefits. Some of the people here are making $100,000 a year with all the trimmings for jobs that warrant a third of that salary. … somewhere along the way, the ideals original union organizers wanted to achieve for workers has been abused so badly, they have lost the respect of middle-class America ”“ at least what”™s left of it.”