30,000 protest Draconian budget cuts in New York

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NEW YORK-Cutbacks and layoffs instituted by Democratic Party governors and mayors are as much a part of the capitalist class's war against poor and working people in the 1990s as the shooting wars waged by Republican presidents.

Nowhere is this clearer than in New York State, where Governor Mario Cuomo and New York City Mayor David Dinkins have instituted massive cutbacks and layoffs to make up budget deficits.

In Albany, Cuomo has announced layoffs of 10 percent of the state work force and massive cutbacks in vital social services. This is to cover a projected shortfall of $6 billion. In New York City, Mayor Dinkins has announced similar measures to fill a $3 billion deficit.

Democratic Governor Cuomo may criticize cuts in federal aid to the states by Republican presidents. Dinkins may blast cuts in aid to New York City by both Republican Bush and fellow Democratic Governor Cuomo. But all are united on one thing—given the deepening economic crisis, the profits of the banks and corporations are sacrosanct. It is the working people, not the rich, who must pay.

Marching on the Capitol On March 20, over 30,000 demonstrated in Albany to protest Governor Cuomo's proposed $4.5 billion program of cutbacks. The protest demonstration, initiated by the state legislature's Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, was backed by New York's largest labor unions (District Council 37 of AFSCME, Local 1199 of the Health and Hospital Workers, and District 65 of the United Automobile Workers). It was the largest demonstration to date on this issue.

While the banks and corporations pay the lowest tax rate in modern state history, Cuomo has proposed to resolve the deficit through means of layoffs, cutbacks, furloughs, "wage deferrals," and increased taxes on poor and working people.

This is happening in the context of a drive by the banks and corporations to resolve their profit crisis through speedup of workers at the point of production, giveback union contracts, layoffs, and union busting.

"Tax the rich! No Cutbacks, No Layoffs!" Dennis Rivera, president of Local 1199 of x. King's Dream is LIVE PassiOn! addresses Albany, N.Y. anti-cutbacks rally.

Brian Palmer/Impact Visuals DAN maya METRICH! Communications Workers of America and a local of the United Automobile Workers Bob Fitch, a consultant with Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America, motivated the proposal for a tax justice campaign. "Wall Street profited hugely from the '80s," he pointed out. "New York City real estate values increased 400 percent. The Dow Jones rose 300 percent. The permanent government had a party, and now they want to pass the bill on to workers and the middle class "We need tax alternatives," he said. "We will be told that there are no realistic alternatives-that our ideas are impractical, impolitic, unachievable. But we say, if the Wall can fall in Berlin, if apartheid can be smashed in South Africa, the rich can be taxed in New York City."

Union tops' dead-end strategy Key to building such a community-labor coalition in the 1990s, Fitch argued, is a strong and militant labor movement-which breaks with the dead-end strategy of business trade unionism.

Pointing to the failure of the New York City labor movement to stop cutbacks and layoffs during the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s, Fitch argued that, this time around, organized labor must build bridges with other unions and the communities they serve.

Rarely has the labor movement had a better opportunity to build such bridges than in the recent period. The explosive Daily News strike, happening in the context of the massive cutbacks and layoffs demanded by the Cuomo and Dinkins administrations, raised the burning need for concrete solidarity within the labor movement.

The contracts of two important municipal workers unions expired during this time (District Council 37 of AFSCME and Local 237 of the Teamsters). But so far, the response by organized labor to the crisis has been strikingly similar to that of 1975.

An important call for a one-day strike by New York City labor with the Daily News strikers was passed overwhelmingly by the Delegated Council of Local 1199 in November. But it was scuttled in the Central Labor Council.

DC 37's leader Stanley Hill, who still points with pride to the union's collaboration with the bankers in bailing the city out of the last budget crisis, pointed to DC 37's recent settlement as a victory. Buying into the logic of the capitalist austerity drive, he recently wrote, "It was the best we could get under the circumstances."

Ironically, the labor top's strategy of business trade unionism sold short even its own members. In addition to dividing the struggle for a decent contract from the struggle against cutbacks city-wide, the 2.25 percent wage increase is far short of the

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