UAW Joins Tax Day Protest

Rosemarie Rieger at citigroup protest

MoveOn organizers put together a protest of the CitiGroup Bank's shareholders meeting at the Anatole Hotel in Dallas on Tax Day, April 17. Nowadays, and especially since the successful "99%Spring" trainings on April 14, whatever barriers between different organizations may have existed are pretty well gone. Code Pink, Jobs with Justice, and Occupy Dallas activists were virtually indistinguishable in the crowd of 50+ at the rally.

UAW members at Citigroup protest

 

Union folk are joining protests

The United Auto Workers had probably the biggest contingent they have ever had at such general protests. Gerardo Contreras brought his big blue and gold UAW flag. Other unionists were in the crowd, but not wearing their union colors. This integration of union and non-union protesters is one of the major good trends uplifting the protest movement today.


According to the Dallas newspaper, Citigroup had just "earned" $2.9 billion in 40 different countries during the first three months of the year. The shareholders inside the Anatole hotel voted against a big giant pay package for the CEO, which may be part of another important trend.

 

 

APWU picketers on Tax Day

Postal workers say "save your services and our jobs!"

After the Anatole picket, I went to the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) picket at the main post office on Hiway 30. They picketed from 4:30 PM to 8:30 while literally thousands of last-minute taxpayers drove by to drop off their tax forms. Many of them stayed to take leaflets from the postal workers. The leaflets asked everybody to call Congress at 202-224-3121 to ask them to pass legislation that would fix any post office financial problems without gutting the mail system and laying off 100,000 workers!

 

In Solidarity

Gene Lantz

 

 

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