Illustration by Zina Saunders

You can still see traces of the Occupy Wall Street encampment that once stood in Zuccotti Park—a contingent of police officers by the plaza’s entrance and an NYPD watchtower standing guard on Zuccotti’s
northern edge. However, the protesters who made this park their home before being evicted by the police last November are largely gone and the news trucks that formerly stationed themselves outside have departed in favor of a Chabad Mitzvah Tank.

On a recent afternoon at Zuccotti, The Observer encountered handful of tourists and businessmen on lunch breaks but there was nary a demonstrator in sight. At nearby Federal Hall, there were about 11 Occupiers holding signs and sitting on the steps. On the street below, workers were seemingly oblivious to the Occupiers in their midst.

“You’re a Republican?” a suited man asked his friend as they briskly passed by. “Good man!”

Seven months into the movement, the Wall Street that protesters are ostensibly trying to occupy has become inured to the spectacle of carnivalesque protests, demonstrators sleeping on sidewalks and mass arrests. And it seems the rest of the city has too. The protesters are in danger of becoming just another discordant note in the daily din that New Yorkers are so adept at tuning out, like panhandlers, street performers, sidewalk preachers and the other distractions of urban life.

“Their entire message, it’s so fragmented that no one hears it,” said Sam Padilla, the owner of a construction firm behind several developments in the financial district. “It becomes a nuisance, it’s like a gnat that you’re just trying to swat away. It’s just another element of the background noise. They want to be heard, but their message is too confusing.”

Daby Carreras, a broker with Spartan Capital, smoked a cigar a half block away from the Federal Hall Occupiers. With their many messages, Mr. Carreras said the protesters concerns just get “mixed up” and don’t grab the attention of Wall Street workers.

“The brokers are thinking about how to make more money than they did last year,” he said.

Wider public interest in the Occupy protest has also waned. Mentions of “Occupy Wall Street” in the news media are down this month by nearly 75 percent from peak in October, according to Google News. During that same period, Google searches for “Occupy Wall Street” dropped by over 80 percent nationally. The decline was even steeper in New York.

On May 1, however, Occupiers hope to jump back to the forefront of the city’s collective consciousness with a massive day of demonstrations that has been termed a “general strike.” The forecast for the day includes civil disobedience, political performance art, flash mobs and a push into Midtown.

As they move toward May Day, the protesters promise the debut of a new, decentralized model for the movement that will fuel a comeback following their eviction from the park. However, their adversaries on Wall Street aren’t the only ones who don’t seem to speak the protesters’ language.

Occupy’s planned spring reawakening is the brainchild of a secretive group of protesters who have proved markedly unfriendly to outsiders. Progressive political types and union leaders who seem like the protesters’ natural allies have had difficult experiences working with them. Even some Occupiers are complaining they’ve been left in the dark and don’t know what’s on the menu for May Day. Amid this handwringing, the insular core planning the “general strike” are more than happy to do their own thing and confident they’re going to change the world.

The May 1 Occupy comeback is currently being planned at small meetings around the city. At one of these gatherings in a Lower East Side church Sunday night, a group of about 30 Occupiers met on folding chairs and a single couch. The crowd was evenly divided between men with shaggy hair and beards and women with edgy haircuts and thick glasses. They were almost all in their 20s. A handful were members of minority groups.

A skinny man with a combination Mohawk/mullet (call it a mullhawk) and striped overalls stood at the front of the room and scrawled a list of scheduled May Day activities on a large piece of paper as they were mentioned by the group’s members. There was a panoply of protest actions planned by different Occupy-affiliated groups—including marches, “choir flash mobs,” union rallies, games of “capture the flag,” a “music dance party” and a demonstration involving “trying to levitate the Goldman sign and throwing pennies at the Federal Reserve.”

Occupy has always prided itself on being a diverse, leaderless movement, but the downside of this structure was on display at the planning meeting. Many of the attendees clearly didn’t know the details of all the events in this smorgasbord of May 1 actions.

“There’s a ‘Shit Has Got to Go’ event posted on a news site,” pointed out a man named Malcolm, who wore a sleeveless shirt, Afro and beaded necklace.

“What does that mean?” a girl asked.

“I don’t know, I just thought people would want to know about it even though it’s vague,” Malcolm said.

At one point, a man named Chris discussed plans for the aftermath of one of the main marches, which was to take protesters from Union Square to Wall Street. The ideas were rather open-ended.

“At that point, some folks from Occupy are going to ask anyone in the crowd who’s willing to, to leave to go to an evening staging area,” Chris outlined. “From there, there’ll be, like, whatever the hell we want to make it. So, some people probably want to do a march. Some people probably want to, like, go sleep out on Wall Street or something.”

In addition to these activities, people at the meeting described even vaguer protests planned for “50 to 70 targets across Midtown.”

Organizers at the strategy session said union workers would be holding “99 pickets” as part of the festivities, but they had scant details about the union element of the protests.

“Some TWU union workers are going to be like, We don’t have a contract or whatever,” Chris said when asked to give details on a transit workers’ rally.

As attendees pressed for more information about union participation, a young woman seated on the couch explained that organizers might not be able to provide more detail about the union portions of the protest because they were being planned separately.

“There’s like 40 different groups plus that are doing this and we have to get confirmation from a bunch of different bureaucracies,” she said.

Another woman with a blond chunk of hair in her otherwise brown bob was clearly unsatisfied with this explanation.

“Talking about bureaucracy in this room makes me cringe and a lot of this info should be worked out already,” she said.

The distance from organized labor was maintained partially because many Occupiers are uncomfortable with the structured nature of established progressive political groups. Because of this, May 1 marches will be facilitated by union marshals but will also include segments solely made up of Occupiers.

“There’s an Occupy Wall Street zone in the march and anyone who doesn’t feel like marching with marshals should go with the Occupy zone,” one of the organizers said at the meeting.

After about two hours of talking, the disagreements over the unknown aspects of various events seemed to have taken their toll on the group.

“Can we do a vibe check? It seems like people are getting really angry,” said a young woman with a plaintive voice. “Can we all just take a moment and take a deep breath? We all want this to be really awesome and we shouldn’t be fighting with each other.”

The meeting concluded soon after.

Despite being branded a general strike, one thing that isn’t on the menu for May 1 is a work stoppage. Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told The Observer the Occupiers haven’t worked with the unions in “a serious way.”

“They haven’t tried to understand how you create coalitions with established elements of the progressive community,” Mr. Appelbaum said.

Despite the fact he and his union were early supporters of the Occupy movement, Mr. Appelbaum said the protesters made no attempts to communicate with organized labor.

“We’re on the same side, that’s what the Occupy movement doesn’t seem to understand,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “We’re on the same side and we should be talking to each other, not just being talked at.”

Over 20 labor groups, including Mr. Appelbaum’s RWDSU, have endorsed the Occupy protests. However, they have not called on workers to strike. Mr. Appelbaum said Occupiers should have checked with the
unions before proclaiming a strike.

“You’re not going to see workers leave their jobs in large numbers,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “That was what was called for at this time without appropriate discussion and involvement.”

A union official, who didn’t want to be named because his group is endorsing the protest, said “continuing conversations” between Occupiers and unions broke down because the diffuse, leaderless nature of the movement made it difficult to collaborate with.

“With the Occupy movement, it’s not always clear who you’re even supposed to be speaking with,” he said.

The union official also described the culture clash that occurred between labor groups and Occupiers.

“I think that, because the labor movement was established with hierarchy and the like, that it was held up to a little bit of disdain. It didn’t reflect the way the Occupy movement thought that democracy should operate, so I think that there were language barriers because of that,” the official said. “I also think that the labor movement, because it has such a hierarchical structure, has difficulty in understanding a movement without structure like that.”

Mr. Appelbaum believes Occupiers’ inability to partner with unions and other established progressive political groups shows the movement might not be able to grow beyond the cadre of young protesters who have kept the occupation alive after its eviction from the park.

“I think that in order for a movement to be successful, you have to expand beyond your core constituency and that has not happened with Occupy Wall Street,” Mr. Appelbaum said.

None of the May Day festivities planned by the Occupiers are part of the “99% Spring,” a slew of Occupy branded activities hosted by the multimillion-member progressive fund-raising organization MoveOn.org.

Justin Ruben, MoveOn’s executive director, told The Observer his group got behind the protests almost as soon as they began.

“Economic injustice and inequality had been our top priority and campaign since the beginning of last year,” Mr. Ruben said. “Then, when Occupy happened, we kind of jumped in. It was articulating the exact same concerns that our members were really frustrated about and had been working on all year, but in a really compelling, amazing way. So, we sort of jumped in to connect people with it, to support it.”

MoveOn’s involvement triggered a backlash from Occupiers who abhor the organization’s work on Democratic political campaigns. Last week, AdBusters, the anticorporatist magazine that initially launched the call for a Wall Street occupation, published a scathing online editorial blasting MoveOn for sending Occupy-themed solicitations for donations and calling the organization part of the “dead body of the old left.”

“MoveOn wants to hijack our movement with their 99% Spring,” the AdBusters editorial said. “MoveOn is an existential threat to our movement because they don’t have a revolutionary bone in their body.”

Mr. Ruben vigorously denies the charge his group was trying to co-opt the Occupiers. He also suggested protesters’ intolerance of different approaches may hurt them, especially as the presidential election
nears.

“Many of these groups and strains, who have been fighting together against economic inequality and for the power for the 99 percent, are going to go in different directions around the elections,” Mr. Ruben said. “Some people want to put their energy in different places and, I think, we need to have a notion of a diversity of strategies that we all respect, because we’re doing the work of the 1 percent if we just tear each other down.”
Electoral politics can be a “useful tool,” he added, “and even if that’s not your bag, hopefully we can sort of honor the fact that some folks are going to want to get into that.”

Protesters we spoke to seemed unconcerned what others think of their methodology and confident they’ll blow the city’s collective mind, come May Day. “Ultimately, this will be a catalyst for a lot of people who are in their early 20s and relatively middle class to wake up and recognize their place in the theater of the world and the social struggle,” said one Occupy organizer we spoke to after the planning meeting.

“That brings more people to it. It’s a new context.”

What remains to be seen is whether the Occupiers can continue to make an impact on the larger world by speaking on their own terms. And whether they can regain the attention of a city populated with habitual ignorers. The kids say they’re all right. The rest of us will find out on May 1.

hwalker@observer.com

Today, a number of elected officials including Sen. Chuck Schumer, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn are gathering in front of the former site of the factory for a commemoration, and they will be greated by another call to strengthen labor laws.

According to prepared remarks obtained by The Politicker, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union head Stuart Appelbaum will tie the Triangle disaster to today's fight over living wage. The legislation is slated to get a public hearing in the City Council next month. Speaker Quinn has not stated her position on the bill. A number of progressive Council members have already declared their support for it. Mayor Bloomberg has spoken out against this, and similar bills.

"The most important tribute to Triangle is offered not in words but in deeds: elected officials must ensure that government continues to protect and improve the lives of all working people," Appelbaum says. "That means standing up for a living wage so that countless working New Yorkers no longer feel condemned to poverty, but instead can finally get closer to achieving the kind of economic security they need and deserve."

And Appelbaum adds:

"Here in New York, as we push to regulate Wall Street, as we push to establish living wages in subsidized developments, as we push to make lives better for today's largely immigrant workforce, the same forces - the Real Estate Board, the proponents of unregulated markets, the free traders -- that opposed government regulation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory a century ago are opposing us now."

Backers of a living wage have been pushing for a bill that would require businesses in new developments that receive city subsidies to pay a living wage of $10 per hour, plus benefits. Advocates are beginning a major push on the measure, arguing that it has broader economic benefits since the bill would spread taxpayer dollars beyond wealthy developers who build with city subsidized incentives.

Appelbaum has been out front on the measure but his remarks today, which essentially compare elected officials who ignore the calls for a living wage to those elected officials who ignored calls for workplace reforms 100 years ago, are the furthest he has gone on the matter.

Full remarks from Appelbaum below:

On behalf of the Jewish Labor Committee, whose roots are anchored here, on this hallowed ground, I say that the 146 innocent garment workers - mostly women, mostly Jewish and Italian, mostly immigrant - who perished in the Triangle Fire did not die in vain.

It took their deaths to bring about meaningful government intervention to regulate business, and to respect the call of workers struggling to secure the benefits of union membership.

Many of our grandparents and great grandparents played a critical role in building a strong and vibrant labor movement with the hope that it would endure and remain a permanent feature of American life. Through their actions and their struggle, our lives, and the lives of all Americans were made better.

Today, those hard fought gains are under threat in communities across the United States by those who seek to go back to the time of 1911, when there was little government regulation of business and few unions.

Here in New York, as we push to regulate Wall Street, as we push to establish living wages in subsidized developments, as we push to make lives better for today's largely immigrant workforce, the same forces - the Real Estate Board, the proponents of unregulated markets, the free traders -- that opposed government regulation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory a century ago are opposing us now.

Today, as the leader of the Jewish Labor Committee and President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, I pledge to continue the struggle that the Triangle Fire sparked on this day a century ago.

The most important tribute to Triangle is offered not in words but in deeds: elected officials must ensure that government continues to protect and improve the lives of all working people. That means standing up for a living wage so that countless working New Yorkers no longer feel condemned to poverty, but instead can finally get closer to achieving the kind of economic security they need and deserve.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The moral arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."

Brothers and sisters, may we never lose our sense of outrage at injustice around us!

Thank you.

The bill, dubbed the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, would force most every development receiving city subsidies of at least $100,000 to require a minimum wage of $11.50 an hour (or $10 and benefits) for anyone working in the development, a mandate that would mostly affect retail jobs (which tend to be low wage).

The Bronx elected officials—led by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.—and the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union are launching a campaign on the issue (with T-shirts, a logo, a Web site and all), and held a press conference Tuesday at City Hall (one which Mayor Bloomberg walked by with a smirk on his face) to press the issue.

Indeed, the text of the bill certainly displays more effort and some sense of reality than a similar bill introduced by some of the same elected officials last session. That bill called for all developments receiving at least $10,000 of subsidy to mandate the living wage, something that would anger far more subsidy recipients. The new bill also exempts developments used exclusively for affordable housing, and developments that house a cultural institution or social services organization.

Here's a piece of the bill, complete with charged rhetoric:

"It is the policy of the city that jobs supported with financial assistance, whether conferred directly by the city or indirectly by a city economic development entity, should pay wages that allow working New Yorkers to support themselves with dignity.  In furtherance of this policy, covered employers shall pay their employees no less than a living wage."

The wage would also be tied to the CPI, adjusting for inflation (a rational way of doing policy that is often left out of legislation on issues such as, say, legislator pay).

Resistance on the issue comes from the mayor, who says it will slow development, and the real estate industry, which, too, worries it would slow development given the higher costs (and lower rents one could charge) that would come as a result.

ebrown@observer.com

Plus, he said, it's "useful" to have a candidate that is not coming from the legislature, since much of the electorate has a low opinion of that legislative body. All of these were "an important consideration," RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said at the time. Taken all together, Appelbaum was arguing, basically, that Rice is a better general election candidate.

The criticisms Appelbaum raised seemed like direct shots at Rice's leading opponent, State Senator Eric Schneiderman.

I asked Schneiderman today how he responded to the diversity argument.

Dutifully on message, the state Senator said said, "Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I welcome the discussion of efforts to reform Albany because that gives me a chance to talk about my record on those issues."

Schneiderman was at City Hall formally receiving the endorsement of 32BJ, a union and one of the major components of The Working Families Parties. If you're watching union endorsements, earlier Schneiderman got the endorsement of 1199, another key figure of the WFP. The Communication Workers of America backed rival Assemblyman Richard Brodsky.

Rice, as noted above, got the RWDSU.

The frontrunner in New York, whose intentions seem to be called into question here, is Andrew Cuomo.

Here's campaign manager Richie Fife:

"Yesterday’s outcome in Massachusetts reminds us how fast frontrunners can falter and that there is nothing inevitable in politics.  Voters want leaders to be straightforward with them, open about their intentions and plans, and to be assured that they are working in their best interest.  That’s exactly what Governor Paterson is doing and why his poll numbers continue to improve."

"Paterson has not made a lot of friends in labor," Comrie said, speaking to me after the mayor's state of the city speech in Queens. He added that Paterson "is not creating a lot of opportunities."

Comrie said the governor's election plans don't create a clear path to victory. "I don't understand his strategy. What's going to be his base statewide?" asked Comrie. "The angry voter?"

"David Paterson is a good man who has done what he has thought was best for the citizens of New York," Appelbaum wrote. "Nonetheless, polling has consistently shown, as have his campaign finance reports, that David Paterson is not the strongest candidate that New York Democrats can put forward."

He went on to say, "There is a growing sense among Democrats, as evidenced by polling and fundraising numbers, that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would be our strongest candidate. Andrew Cuomo has a proven record as an office holder, campaigner and as an outspoken advocate for working people. I urge Andrew Cuomo to run for Governor of New York. I also think Andrew Cuomo would be a great Governor for all New Yorkers, and I urge New York Democrats to support him, and to unite around him, as our nominee."

Here's the letter:

January 20, 2010

An open letter to New York Democrats: 

Last night's stunning defeat of Martha Coakley for Senator Kennedy's former Senate seat in Massachusetts is certainly a wake-up call. Voters are understandably concerned about the economy and are looking for their government leaders to find ways to protect working families. 

We will be electing members of the Assembly, State Senate, U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate and all state-wide elected officials. They will be determining the laws, regulations and policies that will affect our lives for years to come.

Furthermore, what happens in New York's elections - as we send members to the U.S. Congress - can determine the balance of power in Washington as well. 

And the legislature we elect this year will be charged with reapportionment of both legislative and congressional seats that will likely govern us for the next 10 years here in New York.

History has shown us over and over again that the top of this ticket will have an enormous impact on the rest of the ticket.

David Paterson is a good man who has done what he has thought was best for the citizens of New York. And we should thank him and respect him for his contribution and service to the people of this state.

Nonetheless, polling has consistently shown, as have his campaign finance reports, that David Paterson is not the strongest candidate that New York Democrats can put forward. We need the strongest possible candidate for Governor at the top of the strongest possible ticket to ensure that Democratic candidates who support the principles and values of our party are elected at every level, including Congress. New Yorkers have too much at stake to do otherwise.

There is a growing sense among Democrats, as evidenced by polling and fundraising numbers, that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would be our strongest candidate. Andrew Cuomo has a proven record as an office holder, campaigner and as an outspoken advocate for working people. I urge Andrew Cuomo to run for Governor of New York. I also think Andrew Cuomo would be a great Governor for all New Yorkers, and I urge New York Democrats to support him, and to unite around him, as our nominee.

Sincerely, 

Stuart Appelbaum
President
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW

Not a bad friend for Thompson, who is openly considering a statewide run next year. Steve Kornacki thinks the state comptroller's race is Thompson's best bet.

It’s the latest slight Bloomberg’s Democratic rival, Bill Thompson, has faced, from national Democrats.

So far, not too many of Thompson’s Democratic supporters here are speaking out about it. A number of Democratic congress members contacted yesterday had nothing to say about the Podesta endorsement.

One exception is Stuart Appelbaum, head of R.W.D.S.U. and outspoken Thompson supporter.

Appelbuam said Podesta “has done harm” to his reputation, and that of his think tank, the Center for American Progress.

Here’s what Appelbaum had to say in an email:

"Unfortunately, in his attempt to curry favor with the billionaire mayor of New York City, John Podesta has done harm to his own reputation as well as to the credibility of the Center for American Progress. Working people in New York are hurting while Bloomberg pursues Republican economic policies on development and finance. Mr. Podesta should come to the Bronx and see what is really going on in our city. Bloomberg seeks to enrich his wealthy developer friends, while a third of the families in the Bronx continue to live in poverty. Just look at the Kingsbridge Armory and Bloomberg's efforts to transform it into a center for poverty wages."

Democratic mayoral nominee Bill Thompson often says he hopes to build the “second largest” grass-roots campaign New York City has ever seen, behind the one assembled here for Obama, and paints his campaign for City Hall as an extension of the “change” voters sought when they voted for Obama last year.

But to date, Obama has not signaled his support for the Democratic nominee. Obama did publicly recognize Thompson during a speech at the N.A.A.C.P. centennial celebration here in July, but by that time, the president had already referred to Bloomberg as “outstanding.”

Other national Democrats, like former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, have appeared with Bloomberg and praised him lavishly.

Some Thompson supporters want the White House and national Democrats to end their appearances with Bloomberg and start campaigning for Thompson.

“The Democratic National Committee is going to be evaluated on the three most important races this year, in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of R.W.D.S.U., and a major Thompson supporter, said in an interview yesterday.

“It’s important for the Democratic Party that Bill Thompson be elected. Support from the Democratic Party, nationally, may be enough to put him over the line and they have as much at stake as Bill Thompson.”

Thompson trails Bloomberg in public opinion polls and is being heavily outspent.

State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. said, “He decided to get involved, now he has no choice. He has to support the person, the Democratic candidate for mayor. If he doesn’t, then I would question his sincerity with being concerned with the Democratic Party’s future. If he’s concerned, he’s concerned all the way. He cannot do it for Paterson and not support Billy Thompson.”

]]> President Obama may be getting involved in local contests, but there’s one he hasn’t touched so far: the New York City mayor's race.

Democratic mayoral nominee Bill Thompson often says he hopes to build the “second largest” grass-roots campaign New York City has ever seen, behind the one assembled here for Obama, and paints his campaign for City Hall as an extension of the “change” voters sought when they voted for Obama last year.

But to date, Obama has not signaled his support for the Democratic nominee. Obama did publicly recognize Thompson during a speech at the N.A.A.C.P. centennial celebration here in July, but by that time, the president had already referred to Bloomberg as “outstanding.”

Other national Democrats, like former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, have appeared with Bloomberg and praised him lavishly.

Some Thompson supporters want the White House and national Democrats to end their appearances with Bloomberg and start campaigning for Thompson.

“The Democratic National Committee is going to be evaluated on the three most important races this year, in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of R.W.D.S.U., and a major Thompson supporter, said in an interview yesterday.

“It’s important for the Democratic Party that Bill Thompson be elected. Support from the Democratic Party, nationally, may be enough to put him over the line and they have as much at stake as Bill Thompson.”

Thompson trails Bloomberg in public opinion polls and is being heavily outspent.

State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. said, “He decided to get involved, now he has no choice. He has to support the person, the Democratic candidate for mayor. If he doesn’t, then I would question his sincerity with being concerned with the Democratic Party’s future. If he’s concerned, he’s concerned all the way. He cannot do it for Paterson and not support Billy Thompson.”

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