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March and Be Heard

To The Editor:

The bankers made billions while selling sub-prime mortgages. Now that the economy has crashed, it isn't the bankers who are paying; it is the workers and the poor who are paying with our tax money to bail out the bankers who caused the crash.

Workers are losing their jobs, their homes, their health care, and their pensions. Their children can't get a student loan because these same bankers won't lend them the money, even after we've given trillions in bailout money to these same banks. The community is losing much-needed services because the state and the city budgets are stripped to the bone, while Bernie Madoff continues to live in his $7-million penthouse and the bankers pay each other "bonuses" from the bail-out funds.

What is wrong with this picture? Why do we tolerate "capitalism on the economic upswing and socialism on the economic downturn"? It's a system where all profits go to the wealthy, while workers assume all the debts. It's a "heads you win—tails we lose" proposition. Come on, union members, wake up. This is one swindle too many.

If you have a 401k, do you have the guts to look at its present balance? Stop muttering to yourself about this terrible turn of events. Turn off the television. The news-readers can't hear you when you yell at the TV. They will only pay attention when you decide to actually get off your duff and take action. Workers took action at the height of the 1930s depression and won all the union rights and community services that we've benefitted from ever since. We won Social Security, minimum wage laws, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, rent control, etc. …and above all we won the right to organize into unions.

The union movement, led by the New York City Central Labor Council, in alliance with numerous community organizations, has called for a massive demonstration at City Hall on Thursday, March 5 at 4 p.m. Please, no excuses. It's your job on the line, your house on the line, your pension on the line, your community on the line. Be there.

March 5 marks the beginning, not the end of the fight to save our jobs and services. Just four weeks later, at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 3 and 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 4, massive demonstrations will take place on Wall Street, called by the "Bail Out the People Movement." The date was selected because it is the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, where he was supporting a strike of AFSCMErepresented sanitation workers. Be there with your union banners.

Just four weeks after April 3 and 4, comes the massive May 1 Worker and Immigrant Rights Coalition demonstration in Union Square. May 1 originated in the U.S. in the fight for the eight-hour day. The union movement needs to reclaim May 1 and join with the large numbers of our most oppressed fellow workers: the immigrant workers who built this city and built our union movement, and have revived May 1 each year since 2006.

In disunity there is weakness. If the union movement wants unity in this fight to defend our jobs and services, we must have unity with the most-oppressed workers in our country: the immigrant workers. The slogan "Si Se Puede" originated with the immigrant Mexican farm workers. If we want real change, we will breathe life into that slogan by standing shoulder-toshoulder with our immigrant brothers and sisters on May 1 in Union Square. Be there with your union and your union banners.

Let's all join hands and walk proudly in unity on March 5, April 3-4 & May 1.
MIKE GIMBEL

Editor's Note: Mr. Gimbel is a District Council 37 Local 375 delegate to the AFL-CIO New York City Central Labor Council and chairs the local's Labor Community Unity Committee.