New York University, which insisted on an open shop and a grievance procedure
that did not entail binding arbitration, decided, in Sexton's words, to "move
ahead without the union." GSOC members voted to strike--not to achieve higher
wages (NYU's current pay scale is roughly equal to that of the old union
contract) but to affirm their right to unionize. "To walk away from the union
contract," says Matthew Osypowski, a graduate student in creative writing who
remains on strike, "would be a betrayal of those who fought for our first
contract and those who will stand to inherit the benefits of the second."
The times is reporting on a potential end to the transit strike. There's a very good, if somewhat buried piece about the ways in which racialized discourse is being mobilized, primarily by the MTA and powers that be, around the strike.
But now, as representatives of a mostly nonwhite work force trade
recriminations publicly with white leaders in government and at the
transportation authority, the potentially volatile issue of race, with all its
emotional consequences, is bubbling to the surface.
The examples are both blatant and subtle, some open to interpretation, some
openly hostile. Regarding the latter sort, the union - representing workers who
are largely minority - shut down a Web log where the public could comment on the
strike after it became so clogged with messages comparing the workers to monkeys
and calling them "you people." (Seventy percent of the employees of New York
City Transit are black, Latino or Asian-American.)
And what may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their
backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders
and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse.
"There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger
Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming
for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language."
But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a
black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr.
Bloomberg's choice of words. "The word thug is usually attributed to people of
color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the
language was "unnecessarily hostile."
***
Now, that sense of injustice has more fully emerged among workers on strike
and is being championed by elected officials from the City Council to Congress.
Mr. Sharpton made the civil rights connection explicit, noting that when Dr.
King was assassinated in 1968, he was in
Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike, a strike also held to be
illegal.
and finally, the cops are spying on activists, and the NYT has details (and video.)
Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance
in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking
part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in
an accident, a series of videotapes show.
In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the
robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven
public gatherings since August 2004.
The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They
ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear
wore a button that said, "I am a shameless agitator." She also carried a camera
and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.
Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their
associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration
last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man
secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between
officers in riot gear and bystanders.
Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed
their opinions was among the most tightly limited of police powers.
Provided with images from the tape, the Police Department's chief
spokesman, Paul J. Browne, did not dispute that they showed officers at work but
said that disguised officers had always attended such gatherings - not to
investigate political activities but to keep order and protect free speech.
Activists, however, say that police officers masquerading as protesters and
bicycle riders distort their messages and provoke trouble.
No comments:
Post a Comment