The rally - commencing the first day of strike activities for the 25,000 some odd home health care workers striking 26 agencies around New York city, was amazing. I joined about fifteen thousand workers, convening in front of the 1199 building and shutting down city blocks as we listened to a crappy speech from howard dean, and better and more inspiring and powerful stuff from the unusually staid Al Franken, Dennis Rivera, Andy Stern and Chuck Schumer (whose entourage inlcuded a guy i know from high school and college and whose spanish is even worse than Dean's.) Rivera announced that one of the employer agencies had just settled - and more would by the end of the day, leaving only 10,000 of the 25-26,000 without a contract. Reading a letter from Mike "it don't matter if i write policies, i write checks" Bloomberg urging workers to return to work, Rivera presented the executive board's proposal - postponing the two more days of the three-day for one month, giving the other agencies one last chance to settle contracts granting workers a minimum of $10 an hour - which 15,000 Home Health Care aides won today. Emphatically, in a process Rivera rightly called "Democracy in Action," the workers, in an open air vote of thousands and thousands of people, rejected the proposal and voted to stay out for the remainder of the three days. After this, which was kind of amazing to watch, as thousands of workers chanted "strike" in unison, we marched down 43rd streed and turned on to ninth avenue, filling half the street (and thus moviing very slowly) down to 26th street, where we turned east, marched over to fifth, and then turned north again to 32nd street, where we heard a few more speakers and a live band playing a customized 1199 version of "aint no stopping us now."



What struck me, as i marched was the energy and feeling of power everyone had. The organizing that went in to this strike must have been pretty incredible, because these workers were out in force and "ready to rumble." And the crowds on the sidewalks and the windows of office buildings and balconies of new-development condos in hell's kitchen were behind the strike 100%.



feel privileged to have been able to stand in solidarity with these workers today and i applaud them for the victories they have won and look forward to those yet to come. You can read more about it here.