Unions To Protest Wall Street, Bloomberg on May 12

It will all trickle down, trust us.

Sharpen your pitchforks and burn your Brooks Brothers, because the "fat cat" members of the city's unions are planning to protest against Wall Street's ~~callous disregard for humanity~~ lopsided profits and Bloomberg's slash-and-burn policies on May 12. Billed as "The Day We Made Wall Street Stand Still" (they'll also have to shut down Hillstone), members of the United Federation of Teachers, 1199 SEIU and the Coalition for the Homeless will attempt to shame the well-heeled folks who "wrecked our economy and are back to making billions in profits and lavish bonuses, while the rest of us are still cleaning up the mess," the Daily News reports.

But what does humble, small businessman Michael Rubens Bloomberg have to do with all this? According to the unions, he should "ask Wall Street bankers to contribute their fair share to New York City rather than enacting devastating cuts." Oh please, why don't we ask some of the city's undocumented workers to pay THEIR fair share? All of this just reeks of the Democratic machine gearing up to take back the mayor's office in 2013. But no need to worry Wall Street: set your Brookstone noise machine to "babbling brook," everything will be just fine.

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By Christopher Robbins in News on April 25, 2011 10:54 AM

Comments [rss]

carishina

it's not only Unions who are protesting it's other people like
social services workers, teachers etc. Bloomberg needs to cut the sweetheart deals to banks and corporations . I support
Unions and I don't think you can compare the salaries of Union leaders
with the JP Morgan CEO salari $13.560 (something like that per hour in
2010). I think you're all brilliant self- sufficient independent upper middle class americans in many ways thanks to the work that unions had done throughout history, I bet your grandparents were unionized. I'm an immigrant from Ecuador and can't believe how some progressive people in NY are so against unions , you all have historic amnesia that is destroying working class NYC!

Ed101

Ah yes, those Wall St. fat cats whose banks and related services provide tons of jobs and fund this city through tax revenue (and, more and more, this state). How dare we have a highly successful, profitable industry in this city?! We will all be better when unions get more power and money (just ignore Detroit, Cleveland, etc.)!!

cmdrogogov

Well, don't stop there. Pull a bunch of other causally disconnected examples out of the air and blame them on organized labor!

valeriob

These guys always come out in full force dressed like garbage men (no offense to sanitation engineers), yelling some crap into megaphones they don't fully understand, and complain about things that don't affect them to begin with.

These clowns don't struggle to survive... the only struggles they go through is finding new ways to do less work for more money- and justify it.

BottomlessChips

How do we protest unions?

Oh, by not employing their services.

Oh, what's that? They'll threaten your business (sometimes your life) if you don't use them?

Gotcha.

cmdrogogov

You can do better than that.

BottomlessChips

How would you protest a union?

Pozzolana

Now I finally understand why enrollment at the CUNY college where I teach is up so much. It's the death threats we send to prospective students.

BottomlessChips

No, you just distort the market for education which falls under my business point. Students who want to invest in themselves and purchase your services can do so. However, they must purchase not just your services, but all of your colleagues' services as you collectively bargain, or collude.

Pozzolana

The market you refer to is distorted by the admin, and not the teachers. Teachers like myself didn't decide to apply business models to academic institutions.

BottomlessChips

You're right. The government made it a business when they decided to guarantee loans.

sharpshoota

Stupid people try have no clue about the issues and want to talk crap about unions. Union employees don't make a lot of money. The healthcare benefits suck. The fact is that without them your regular non union jobs in the same industries will pay you 5 cents an hour. At least they set a standard for a living wage. Morons don't understand that thy are systematically bringing down wages for all middle class folks. Middle class and the poor are paying for the wall street gamblers addiction.

cmdrogogov

You can't shame a bunch of psychopaths into doing anything. Encouraging compulsive gamblers to hold positions of responsibility is precisely what got us into this mess.

It used to be understood that effective market regulation would stop the kind of economic meltdowns we've seen over the past five years - regulation that was systematically and willfully dismantled by the GOP over the course of three decades. It was like giving a bunch of kids free run in a nuclear power plant control room. The Wall St. bunch and golden-parachute-club CEO's are just continuing to do what they do very effectively, which is make money with no regard for the consequences.

Unions are very different animals compared to their popular perception - most are truly acting in the interests of their members to protect their jobs and communities. If everyone has such a chip on their shoulder about the perceived disparity in wages and job security (hint: public sector unions earn less than their private sector counterparts) perhaps they should unionize too.

Bernie_Geotz_Squirrel_Luv

Which is what got us those $4+ gas prices, not any supply interruption but speculating.

Bernie_Geotz_Squirrel_Luv

I hope this is going to be more exciting than the WTC mosque rallies. I still have some recordings of those. I'm going to this one with 2 cameras, one hidden. And, maybe smoke a cigar.

MattyGC

How about we get rid of both CEOs who are paid too much and Unions who are also paid too much. I think they're sucking this country dry equally.