Forty-five years ago today there was a peace march in New York City by about 1,000 high school and college students. Just four day earlier college kids had been shot down by the National Guard at Kent State for protesting an illegal escalation of the Vietnam War by President Nixon.
Unknown to them, around 200 construction workers mobilized by the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York were preparing for them.
As a show of sympathy for the dead students at Kent State, Republican Mayor John Lindsay ordered all flags at New York City Hall to fly at half-staff that day.
The anti-war protestors assembled at the George Washington statue on Wall Street that day around 7:30 in the morning. Some carried Viet Cong flags. The plan was to march to Federal Hall.
A few blocks away, construction workers learned about the march.
The labor movement was divided over the Vietnam War. AFL-CIO President George Meany and most labor leaders were stridently anti-communist and strongly supported the war effort, but the rank-and-file were split down the middle.
One of the strongest supporters of President Nixon's war effort was Peter Brennan, the president of both the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York.
Brennan was a strong opponent of affirmative action. Brennan called himself a Democrats but usually supported Republicans for office.
He was the one who organized the construction workers counter-protest.
At five minutes to noon, 200 construction workers (although many others may have joined them along the way) converged on Federal Hall from four different directions. They carried American flags and signs that read "All the way, USA," and "America, Love it or Leave it."
Only a thin line of cops separated the two groups. After about two minutes of pushing, the construction workers broke through.
Stop being juveniles," a Lindsay aide, Donald Evans, admonished a construction worker.
"What do you mean, being a juvenile?" he replied, punching Mr. Evans on the chin.
The construction workers singled out the students with the longest hair and beat them with their hard hats. Attorneys and bankers who tried to protect the students were attacked too.
The police largely did nothing to stop the riot.
"While I was on the ground I rolled myself into a ball just as four or five pairs of construction boots started kicking me."
The rioters then moved on to City Hall, where they were momentarily blocked by a thin line of police. However, they soon pushed past the guards and entered the building.
The Mayor's office was so intimidated that they raised the flags at the demands from the right-wing rioters.
The rioters spread out to neighboring buildings. They ripped down the Red Cross and Episcopal Church flags at nearby Trinity Church. One group broke into Pace University, smashed lobby windows with crowbars and beat up students.
Jump ahead to 10:20 in the video below.
Afterward
About 70 people were injured in the riot, four of them police officers. Most of the injured required hospital treatment.
Only six people were arrested.
Mayor Lindsay had harsh criticisms for the lack of action by the police. NYPD leaders accused Lindsay of "undermining the confidence of the public in its Police Department" and blamed their inaction on the Mayor's office.
Brennan said the riot was spontaneous and that none of the rioters used anything but fists.
On May 11, several thousand construction workers held a protest against Mayor Lindsay holding signs that said "impeach the Red Mayor", "rat", "Commy rat" and "traitor", and chanting "Lindsay is a bum". The right-wing protests kept growing in size until 150,000 rallied in downtown New York on May 20 against the mayor.
On May 26 Brennan, along with other union leaders, met with President Nixon at the White House. On April 1971 Brennan pledge his support to President Nixon for his re-election campaign. On July 19, the AFL-CIO refused to endorse McGovern as President.
President Nixon appointed Peter Brennan as his Labor Secretary as a reward for his support.
Comments
wow
I suppose we can expect a whole lot more of that.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
And this is one reason why I don't get too upset with those
who come out against organized labor.
The old CIO unions, the unions that suffered the worst attacks by the government, would not have done this. The trade unions of the AFL, which forms the bulk of the AFL-CIO, has been led by George Meany & then by Sweeny & then by Lane Kirkland. Meany & Kirkland were willing supporters of American imperialism and cut there own throats by so doing.
Here was an instance when power was at least nominally controlled by a liberal and anti-war mayor. He failed to use his power against the building trade thugs. There's no excuse for that.
Thanks for remembering.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
So,
you hold something that happened 45 years ago against Unions. And by one local in NYC. I was in my senior year of high school when this happened and I remember it well. My Dad was president of his local in the IUE. He was outraged over this and sent the international president of the IUE and Meany a letter condemning it even though the IUE had nothing in it. I still have a copy of it. Dad was a WWII Vet as was most of the guys on his executive board. Even though they were in the defense industry, his board and him were adamantly against the war. There were some Unions that backed the war, mainly if they were in the defense industry. Walter Reuther, UAW President, was very anti war, and he held his tongue during the Johnson administration when it came to Vietnam. He was the most influential labor leader pushing for the Civil Rights Act and later, Medicare. In talking with Walter's daughter Linda in 2004, I came to realize that Walter probably felt some allegiance to LBJ and didn't beat him up publicly for the war. After Nixon took office Walter became very vocal against the war. Some believe, myself included, this this is what led to his death in an "accidental plane crash". Walter, BTW, disliked Meany immensely. Meany was an asshole. My Dad despised him.
My point is, in the late 60s there were a lot of dynamics going on as you may well know. Please don't lump all unions together. Especially, like in this case, where you have a renegade local president. Some do some really fucked up things, like the Teamsters supporting Rob Portman here in Ohio this election, but by far Unions have done much for the working people of this country.
The building trades riot was an outcome of George Meany's
pro-war stance that was endorsed by the full AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO was also an integral part of American imperialism within this hemisphere.
AFL unions were allied with red-baiting McCarthyites in attacking CIO unions and independent left unions.
Much of today's weakness of organized labor can be traced to the 1950s and the "patriotic" trade unions who were OK with the blacklists of business, academia, and government and resisted the concept of an industrial union.
Nothing I said indicates I believe unions have not helped their workers. The trade unions, however, have been short sighted and have aligned themselves too many times with capital vs internationalism.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
They'll have to figure out some other institution or
organization other than unions. There are hardly enough of them under 30 to be worth the trouble. Maybe old guys (like me) in motorized wheelchairs might cause a ruckus, but...
gjohnsit's story is one of the reasons why things have gotten the way they are.
What Also Doesn't Help
Increasingly, union workers vote Republican. Of the roughly 150 members of my local, well over half vote GOP if they vote at all.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
It's not that new. The UAW once admitted that if 60% of the
members voted for union endorsed candidates, that was unusual. This was back when the UAW had real clout.
In a real sense, many union members pissed away their unions that had been built at great personal sacrifice.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
U.S. labor has harbored hatred of things and people East Asian
Before the focus on immigrants as job-killers, it was fashionable for U.S. politicians including Democrats to blame Japan.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/28/weekinreview/the-nation-japan-bashing-...
http://www.rememberingvincentchin.com/p/vincent-chin.html