"We Are the 99%":

 Labor unions and students joined a growing Occupy Wall Street movement on Wednesday in the largest march since the protest began 20 days ago here in New York City. Tens of thousands marched from Foley Square to Liberty Plaza, the site of the protest encampment where hundreds have been sleeping since a timber 17th. The march was peaceful, but police later beat a handful of protesters with batons after they toppled a police barricade in an attempt to march down Wall Street. Police say a total of 28 people were arrested on Wednesday. Meanwhile, smaller protests against Wall Street continue to take part across the country.

Early this morning, police raided the occupy San Francisco encampment less than a day after some 1000 protesters marched to the city’s financial district. In Boston, protesters have entered their seventh day occupying of Dewey Square and the city’s financial district. In St. Louis, police arrested 10 people on Wednesday. In Washington State, 26 Occupy Seattle protesters were arrested after police moved into a public park where protesters have been camped out for five days. Video shot in Seattle shows police entering a tent and arresting the activists inside.

The Occupy Wall Street march was endorsed by a coalition of labor groups including the Transport Workers Union, National Nurses United, SEIU 1199, and the United Federation of Teachers. We hear the voices of union leaders addressing the boisterous crowd at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan before the march headed to the Financial District

Occupy Wall Street captured the spirit of our time. This is the spirit of our time. This is Madison. This is Cairo. This is Tunisia. You can’t see it, brothers and sisters, but back up the street they are still streaming in. We’re here to say, no more to the bailouts of Wall Street and the disasters on Main Street. No more to tax cuts for the rich and no jobs for the rest of us. We need to turn our energy, take this spirit, and take this state and this country back. And we are going to do it. Occupy Wall Street has started a movement that we are all part of around the world. And together, we will win. Together, we will win.

 We need bailouts with jobs. We need bailouts with health care. We need bailouts in education. We need to know that our future generation will have a place in this country, not subservient to those who have more than they will ever need in this country. We’re here because of corporate greed. Everyone one of us is here because of corporate greed. Everyone of us is here there’s signs in the audience that say, we are the 99%. Well, we are the 99%, and it is time that the 1% made the sacrifice that they’ve been telling us we have to make.

Students made up a large contingent of Wednesday’s march in support of Occupy Wall Street. A national day of student walk-outs was held to protest budget cuts and to show support for Occupy Wall Street. According to the website OccupyColleges.org, walkouts occurred at 75 schools across the nation including many in New York City. Democracy Now! met up with several students who walked out of classes at the City University of New York, the New School and New York University to attend Wednesday’s march in Lower Manhattan.

The Occupy Wall Street protest grows daily, spreading to cities across the United States. “We are the 99 percent,” the protesters say, “that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”
The response by the New York City Police Department has been brutal. Last Saturday, the police swept up more than 700 protesters in one of the largest mass arrests in U.S. history. The week before, innocent protesters were pepper-sprayed in the face without warning or reason.


Organized labor will serve notice today on the bankers and the politicians that the young protesters of Occupy Wall Street speak for millions.

Tens of thousands of transit and city workers, teachers, and maintenance and hospital workers are expected to march to Zuccotti Park late today in a show of solidarity.

The labor rally will signal just how far unions have come since that infamous day 41 years ago, when bands of construction workers rampaged through the Financial District and City Hall. Back then, the hardhats brutally beat scores of youths protesting the Vietnam War.

Now the young people and the unions are on the same side.