WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. From a White Plains CitizeNetReporter. September 23, 2004 (EDITED): The SEIU Local 32BJ (Service Employees International Union) rallied in White Plains yesterday, in an open air special union meeting to ask members permission to call a strike against suburban employers. Identical rallies took place in New Jersey and Long Island today. AFL-CIO affiliated unions also plan a speakout at the Common Council Meeting October 4 to protest and inform the Council and the Mayor on alleged Wal-Mart anti-union practices.
Custodians Rally for Health Care Coverage in front of County Office Building Wednesday. Photo by a White Plains CitizeNetReporter.
Another meeting will take place in the New Yorker Hotel in New York City today, followed by a mach to the Empire State Building. The union's major concern is health coverage.
PUBLIC OFFICIALS SUPPORT RALLY AT MICHAELIAN COUNTY OFFICE BUILDING WEDNESDAY: Left to right, the Mayor of Harrison, Steven Malfitano, (representing State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, Councilman Robert Greer, New York State Assemblyman Adam Bradley and Assemblyman Michael Spano. Photo by a White Plains CitizeNetReporter
Union organizers (WPCNR's correspondent reports), are in process of planning a AFL-CIO affiliated union presence for the 7 o'clock Citizens To Be Heard segment at the October 4 Common Council Meeting to rally the city to reject Wal-Mart as a tenant of the former Sears building adjacent to City Hall. The Council Speakout is being organized by RWDSU 338, (Retail Wholesale & Department Store Union, representing 100,000 workers nationally). The union objective is to alert and teach the public of the corporate practices which "make Wal-Mart bad corporate neighbors." The union will be sending a Vice President/ Health and Safety Director, plus a few more will unbdoubtedly be there.
The object is to have Mayor Joseph Delfino and the Council understand at least some of what labor and elswehere already understand (about Wal-Mart). Mayor Delfino has made known he is opposed to Wal-Mart renting space in the Sears building, currently being renovated by Ivy Equities.
