Game ON!! Collective Group With 1 Million Members Expected To Join Occupy Wall Street Protests!

Alexander Higgins

The plot thickens as more unions pledge support to the Occupy Wall Street movement and a collective group with 1 million members expected to march against the machine.

As I previously reported unions are coming out in full force to support the Occupy Wall Street protests. We received news that the 200,000 member strong Transportation Workers Union would be joining the protests. The Teamster’s union endorsed the protests. Rumors of Verizon workers joining the protests. A scathing endorsement was issued by the Industrial Workers Union has also endorsed the Occupy Wall Street protests. Then news that several more unions had committed to or were contemplating joining the protests, while two the unions scheduled solidarity marches.

Now TPM reports even more unions are joining up to protest against Wall Street and the movement is set to grow rapidly.

The article also comes along with the news that a collective of 8 groups, with over 1 million members. will be joining the Occupy Wall Street movement to show solidarity and march against the machine.

Occupy Wall Street Protests Poised to Grow Rapidly With Union Support
[...]

The Union on Thursday used Twitter to urge members to take part in a massive march and rally on Wednesday, Oct. 5. That effort is being co-sponsored by another eight labor and community outreach organizations.

The Village Voice spoke with TWU Local 100’s spokesman Jim Gannon on Wednesday, who explained the group’s reasons for joining the protests:

“Well, actually, the protesters, it’s pretty courageous what they’re doing,” he said, “and it’s brought a new public focus in a different way to what we’ve been saying along. While Wall Street and the banks and the corporations are the ones that caused the mess that’s flowed down into the states and cities, it seems there’s no shared sacrifice. It’s the workers having to sacrifice while the wealthy get away scot-free. It’s kind of a natural alliance with the young people and the students — they’re voicing our message, why not join them? On many levels, our workers feel an affinity with the kids. They just seem to be hanging out there getting the crap beaten out of them, and maybe union support will help them out a little bit.”

The other eight organizations expected to join in the October 5 rally, based on its Facebook page, are United NY, Strong Economy for All Coalition, Working Families Party, VOCAL-NY, Community Voices Heard, Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change, Coalition for the Homeless, which have a collective membership of over 1 million.

As Jon Kest, the executive director of New York Communities for Change, told Crain’s New York Business: “It’s a responsibility for the progressive organizations in town to show their support and connect Occupy Wall Street to some of the struggles that are real in the city today. They’re speaking about issues we’re trying to speak about.”

Crain’s also quoted a political consultant who said of the demonstration: “”It’s become too big to ignore.”

Meanwhile, the New York Metro 32BJ SEIU, which represents maintenance workers and security officers and counts some 70,000 members, is also re-purposing a previously planned rally on Oct. 12 to express solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, the Huffington Post reports.

“The call went out over a month ago, before actually the occupancy of Wall Street took place,” said 32BJ spokesman Kwame Patterson. Now, he added, “we’re all coming under one cause, even though we have our different initiatives.”

TPM Announces Collective With 1 Million Members To March On Wall Street

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