Gwyneth K. Shaw Photo
Bonnie Cohen has never been in a union. She and her placard-bearing dog Lilith marched alongside thousands of labor supporters to the New Haven Green, anyway, because Cohen saw her future — and the hard-won gains of her family’s past — at stake.
Cohen and Lilith (pictured above) participated in a spirited rally Wednesday afternoon as a wave that began in Wisconsin washed up on New Haven’s shores — an outpouring of public support for workers in both government and the private sector battling layoffs and, in states like Wisconsin, loss of collective bargaining rights.
Unions and union supporters organized the rally. New Haveners from outside labor’s ranks joined the rank and file to fill the Green and shout for a better deal for workers.
There were teachers, laborers, steelworkers, Teamsters, Yale union workers and city workers. Walking alongside them were parents, kids and students; old-school activists and youngsters making first forays into protest. The sea of faces was diverse, in terms of race, ethnicity, age and class.
“I grew up in a family that remembers when,” said Cohen, 66, who lives on George Street. She’s descended from garment workers and others who fought for better working conditions, and struck when they didn’t get them.
Cohen said those gains are threatened now, in places like Wisconsin, Michigan — and New Haven, where employers from Yale to City Hall have been eliminating hundreds of jobs amid the recession. That makes her sad.
“I came just because I’m appalled at what’s going on in this country,” she said.
Stephanie Torres, center, with her sons and friends before the march.
Wednesday wasn’t about a personal involvement in unions for Stephanie Torres either. Torres (in the center in the picture above) and her three sons live in an apartment at Church Street South. She’s not happy about living conditions there, or the prospect of the complex, across the street from Union Station, being redeveloped. So she headed for the Green, on a bus organized by the union-connected Connecticut Center for a New Economy, one of the sponsors of the march.
“They’re trying to break down the place where we live. They’re trying to get us to move out of there,” said Torres, 28. “We’re trying to fight for our rights to stay there, and if they do tear it down, to get them to make it better.”
In keeping with the “We Are One” theme, organizers — a coalition of unions, religious organizations, and student and community activists — printed up signs to identify marchers as one of several groups, such as “unemployed and retired” or “students and youth.” Sheets of neon stickers, each one emblazoned with the name of a local neighborhood, were laid out so participants could claim their residence in Newhallville, Westville or the Hill, among others.
Before the march began, people gathered on a corner of the Green, listening to Scott Marks, pastor at New Growth Outreach Ministries, and others sing about unity and stir up the crowd. After a brief call-and-response with other marchers across Elm Street at the First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, the mass of marchers began moving along College Street toward Wall Street.
Chanting “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” and union slogans, they filled the narrow side street. Once the crowd turned again, onto Temple Street, downtown traffic came to a halt at the intersection. With a sound system blasting pop music as a beacon, the group crossed the Green again, spreading from the steps of City Hall onto Church Street.
At that point, the rally homed in on union concerns, particularly the threat to collective-bargaining rights in other states. New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, who’s pushing many of the city’s unions to grant major concessions, wasn’t the center of attention, as he was a more pointed event earlier this month. But the speakers had plenty to say about the city and the broader political picture.
Yale union leader Marcy Kaufman said she was there to stand with her public-sector comrades — and to stand up for those, like her, who are in the private sector.
“Bargaining rights are civil rights,” said Kaufman, the graduate registrar in Yale’s history department.
John W. Wilhelm, the national president of UNITE HERE and for decades the leader of Yale’s unions, said the publicity stirred up by events in Wisconsin and elsewhere will work to labor’s advantage. The efforts by Wisconsin’s government to strip public unions of bargaining rights prompted an international backlash of support for labor. New Haven is an ideal place, he said, for “something very profound” to take root.
For the first time in decades, young people are pushing for changes, Wilhelm said.
“I’m just glad to be a part of it,” he said. “I think we need to keep building a movement, like we did here today, so that politicians with principles and backbones will be able to stand up.”
Otis Campbell (pictured) isn’t one of the youngsters Wilhelm mentioned. He’s 70 and retired from a career working for shipping companies. He doesn’t even live in New Haven, although he goes to church on Dixwell Avenue.
But he wanted he wanted to come Wednesday to show support for the city, and especially the Newhallville and Dixwell neighborhoods after a few especially rough weeks. His sign placed him in the “Community and Faith” category, and he added stickers from those places.
“We know the devastation that’s going on now,” he said. “I think that when one has the opportunity to promote something good, one should take that opportunity.”
Yale students Katie Harrison and Ben Crosby.
I remember the protest against the income tax, which was probably the largest protest in the history of Connecticut after which Weicker passed it anyway. I knew that the income tax would be like giving drugs to an addict. Here's the proof.
"Connecticut's government has grown beyond taxpayers' ability to pay for it. In fact, state spending has increased 227 percent since 1980 — rising from $4,400 per household to more than $10,000 per household — while median household income remained relatively flat."
http://articles.courant.com/2010-11-14/news/hc-op-mckinney-must-cut-state-spendin20101114_1_spending-cuts-state-spending-government-spending