Occupy Wall Street: The First Quarter and Beyond
by George Gresham
Huffington Post
December 16, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-gresham/occupy-wall-street-the-fi_b_1152334.html

In the world Wall Street has made, quarterly results
are the measure of all things. And so, with the three-
month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street just passed, it
is, inevitably, time to take stock of the movement.

The results so far are impressive, only the most jaded
cynic would deny it. Political leaders obsessed with
the debt and deficits have been forced to focus on jobs
and inequality. Tax breaks for the wealthy that were
untouchable before September 17th are suddenly in the
crosshairs of Congress. Giant corporations that pay no
taxes are finally being called to account, and more
progressive taxes are being promoted in Albany and
elsewhere.

Still, the cynics can say that the tents are gone from
Zuccotti Park and that the encampments across the
country are disappearing one by one. In their eyes,
Occupy Wall Street is just another sinking stock, one
more bubble ready to burst.

Of course, this is why we need a longer time frame to
appreciate the remarkable achievements and lasting
promise of the Occupy movement. Like all of America's
great reform movements, Occupy Wall Street is attacking
problems that seemed insoluble and uniting people who
never realized they had interests in common. Students
drowning in debt, workers without health care, retirees
denied pensions, the unemployed of all stripes and
party affiliations -- they're all united now in a way
they weren't three months ago.

To those of us in the labor movement, it's clear that
Occupy Wall Street is doing what only the most
tenacious organizers can: forging a way forward when
progress seems impossible. Whether we formed our unions
in the coal mines of Appalachia, the assembly lines of
Detroit or the hospitals of New York, we recognize when
the political and economic system is stacked against
the working class and we recognize the enormous effort
required to even the scales.

For decades, labor, the left and progressives of every
stripe have warned about the scourge of inequality in
America. It was Occupy Wall Street that finally
jumpstarted a real conversation about how and why the
richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom
150 million combined.

Occupy Wall Street has reframed the national debate as
quickly and dramatically as any social movement in
American history. Before this fall, America had no
common language to explain the crash of 2008 and its
causes. Now we can see and describe the chasm
separating the 99 percent and the 1 percent. The Occupy
movement might be mocked as naïve for lacking a
specific set of demands, but they've brilliantly
identified the one fundamental problem of our time.

Because Occupy Wall Street has drawn attention by
marching across bridges and sitting down in streets,
some critics call it a lawless mob. But Occupy's
peaceful protestors are firmly in the tradition of the
civil rights movement. Having grown up in the
segregated South, I understood that civil rights
activists sat down at lunch counters not to break the
law but to fix it. That's what America's real freedom
movements have always done. Abolitionists, suffragists,
gay rights activists, they've all pushed to reform the
laws that betray America's values.

We in labor know all about laws that need fixing. In
our union, 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East,
another movement born on the streets of New York, our
hospital workers had to push beyond the bounds of
existing law when they joined together a little more
than 50 years ago. A loophole then in the nation's
labor law denied virtually all hospital workers the
right to form unions. But the workers, many of them
living in poverty, felt a union was their only way
forward so they struck for fair wages and demanded
recognition from their hospitals.

Hospital officials quickly condemned the strikers for
their "revolution against law and order"--words that
must sound familiar to Occupy protestors. During the
strike, the hospitals conceded very little, and after
46 days the impoverished caregivers had to settle. Like
the Occupiers forced from their encampments, the
workers had to retreat from the streets and call
survival a victory. Yet, after an intense advocacy
campaign, hospital workers did win union rights in 1963
when Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed a bill granting
collective bargaining rights to New York City's
hospital workers. After decades of organizing, the
once-impoverished caregivers have become the bedrock of
our city's working class. We know that movements with
humble beginnings can do great things.

Nevertheless, despite all the progress our members have
made -- expanding far beyond the five boroughs to unite
with over 350,000 caregivers up and down the East Coast
-- none of us are insulated from the chill wind blowing
through today's economy. Nicole Owens, a medical
assistant in Massachusetts, still has her job, but her
husband can't find work and now they and their three
children are on the verge of eviction. In Florida,
radiographer Jason Smith is also working, but his hours
have been cut and now he's facing foreclosure.

America's middle class is living on a knife edge and
all of us need the Occupy movement to keep focusing
Washington's attention on that fact. For three months,
they've done it when no one else could. Although many
Occupiers are leaving their tents, if anything, their
influence on community organizations, student groups
and labor unions is only growing stronger. They're
reminding us of the hard-fought achievements of our
past while giving us hope for the future.

Yes, the movement is fragile. No billionaire brothers
are funding it. But the millions of Americans it's
inspired promise to make Occupy Wall Street as
powerful, resilient and long lasting as any of the
great American reform movements.

____________________________________________

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