Where is the Rescue of New York?
New York City’s Bill DeBlasio is threatening organized labor of New York to come to the table for cuts into their contracts or be prepared to suffer mass layoffs of tens of thousands of workers. The aim is primarily the municipal public sector employees of the City; however the effects are broader, with private sector workers in city work contracts likely again to see cuts to prevailing wages and the general services and infrastructure fall into degradation and disrepair. The entire basis of consumption in New York by the residency of the city is in danger.
Currently New York City faces a 7 to 9 billion shortfall in revenue produced from the Coronavirus crisis which wrecked the economy of the city. This shortfall is very real and should be taken very seriously. 900,000 Private Sector jobs were lost in this period, but the insistence of Mayor DeBlasio that the solution should come in the form of cuts to the working class in the public sector is entirely wrong. It is not a remedy to the woes of New Yorkers, but their continued punishment by the ruling class for a crisis outside of their control. Simultaneously this city and state government continue the tax breaks and subsidies for the real estate developers and landlords building luxury residential developments for foreign money launderers stealing from their own people, throwing as little as they can in the cost of production, the cost of labor, the cost of our lives.
While the city and state plan to cut 9 billion from its budget, they continue to plan to prop up that living corpse Stephen Ross, his city on the hill at the Hudson Yards, and his attacks on organized labor.
But does the blame end with DeBlasio and Cuomo? No. They are just the managers of austerity, the little minions of the capitalist sharks. Where is the Federal Government? Where is Donald Trump? While $6 trillion was created from nothing and thrown into the ledgers of banks, how much of that will be utilized to rescue, to invest, in the largest city and center of commercial activity in this country? How much of the money that was invented out of thin air and given to the owning class will be put into this city that was hardest hit by COVID19? It seems nothing.
Trump is poised to give nothing into New York, with the exception of whatever Stephen Ross asks after a generous bribe. We need the Federal Government to put money directly into the budget of New York beyond the 9 billion needed to stop the shortfall from a city that has endured yet another major crisis since 9/11. We need money to expand the capital budgets of this city to mobilize labor to create the wealth needed for our future.
Workers of the Building Trades, the fight for this budget is not only a moment to stand with our brothers and sisters in the public sector - whether we are talking about teachers or transit workers - but it also the time for us to stand with each other from the impending attacks that will be hit us very shortly once cuts are made. Workers, it is time to emerge from the long slumber of months of inactivity and hit the streets. Lets begin to count on each other to fight for a future that has been dashed. All we have to lose is the weight of those co-opted by the ruling class, and march forward! #CountMeIn
