Yesterday, Roger Toussaint, the president of the TWU Local 100 in New York City, was delivered to jail with a rousing march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Who knows what this will mean down the road. Maybe the memory of the march of 1,200 people will fade with time–or maybe people will look back at it as something labor points to as a marker laid down by a movement on the ropes but feeling increasingly angry at the vast imbalance between workers and management.
The crowd gathered at about 4 p.m. in front of the state courthouse in Brooklyn for a rally where a variety of speakers lambasted the legal system for protecting the actions of management (that would be the Metropolitan Transit Authority). The crowd, made up mostly of TWU members but also members from a whole range of unions, chanted support for Toussaint as well as calls for union solidarity to unite people against the power of employers.
The cordoned off area around the stage was packed with union leaders and politicians straining to draw off the support for Toussaint. Chants of “Roger, Roger” wafted through the crowd. I’m not sure how many people among this group would themselves be willing to go to jail for their members–but the rhetoric was hot and heavy with defiant words aimed not just at the MTA but at employers generally. The union leaders represented a cross section of the two federations, Change To Win and the AFL-CIO.
After the speeches, the crowd stepped off towards the bridge. The police kept the march on the sidewalks, which made for a very compact, dense group trying to maneuver a very narrow area. Once we hit the pathway to the bridge, it was a bit chaotic, with union folks trying to create a pathway for the march to proceed through a swarm of photographers and reporters who were jockeying for position–not to mention the pedestrians on the bridge trying to head towards Brooklyn who were trying to wade upstream through the crowd. Three helicopters hovered overhead–I could not tell whether they were police or media choppers. It was a cool, partly sunny late afternoon and Manhattan looked gorgeous.
The march turned down Centre Street and moved into the square right in front of the Tombs where Toussaint will spend the next ten days. I didn’t write down his words because, as I listened to him, I was struck up the electric feeling in the crowd. He stood before a large gathering of media representatives and basically said that the TWU fight represented a pushback against the forces throughout the country that would roll back the power of unions and the rights of workers.
Vigils will be held in front of the jailhouse during Toussaint’s incarceration. I’ll try to report back on that sometime this week.
The New York Times carried its story on the march here. And you can also check out The Daily News’ offering.
