Marching with NYC's "March for Jobs and Economic Fairness"
The JLC delegation included (r-l): Executive Director Martin Schwartz {holding one edge of the banner}, Adelphi University Professor Leigh Benin, Associate Director Arieh Lebowitz, Robert Schwartz, Intern Brett Goldman, and Bennett Muraskin, a union representative for New Jersey college professors. Other JLC activists, from unions including the Communications Workers, the Electrical Workers, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and the United Federation of Teachers, marched with their respective unions. They and others joined our delegation at Union Square.
(Thursday, Dec 1, 2011) New York - JLC marched this afternoon and stayed into the evening at the "March for Jobs and Economic Fairness," called by the New York City Central Labor Council, that according to one report transformed Broadway into "a sea of union workers." The march began near Greeley Square and went straight down to Union Square, fifteen blocks south.
On the agenda of the city's labor movement are an extension of New York State's so-called Millionaires' Tax and the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, "living wage" legislation before the NYC City Council that would obligate companies receiving significant assistance from the city to pay retail workers a living wage. The United Hebrew Trades -- New York JLC has been active in securing support from the Jewish community for passage of this much-needed legislation.
Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union -- who is also President of the Jewish Labor Committee -- is committed to passage of the Fair Wages for New Yorkers legislation, as well as the larger campaign for jobs and economic fairness in workplaces across North America.
Talking about the current economic situation in the U.S., Appelbaum noted that "forty-four percent of all income goes to one percent of the population, and everybody else is struggling just to survive."
Vincent Alvarez, President of the New York City Central Labor Council, noted that "all of us are out here to collectively say that enough is enough. It's time that government and corporate America address issues which are going to lead to a broad-based economic prosperity and address the fundamental problem that we see today, which is the lack of jobs."