By MICHAEL DALY
7-1-98
The demonstration that astonished the City
of New York was planned in a Ninth Ave. cafe exactly a week ago.
The 20 building trades organizers of the
Roy Kay Task Force convened at the Route 66 Cafe just above W.
55th St. at 9 a.m. last Wednesday. Roy Kay is the New Jersey contractor
who is using nonunion labor to put up the new Transit Authority
building a block and a half down Ninth Ave.
The task force had been picketing the site
for a month and had held a demonstration there on June 11 that
had drawn 5,000 construction workers from the West Side of Manhattan.
The rally had featured a 15-foot inflatable rat as a symbol of
a nonunion contractor.
Even with the rat, the demonstration had
received little public attention. The organizers now decided that
the next rally would draw workers from all five boroughs. Grammar
school math was all that was needed to project how this gathering
would compare with the one recruited just from the West Side.
"Much bigger," a task force member
says.
After an hour, the meeting ended and the
task force departed the cafe. Building trades organizers started
putting out the word with leaflets and, most importantly, phone
calls.
"One guy calls five guys who each call
five guys who each call five guys," says Anthony Mancusi,
organizer with the Construction & General Building Laborers'
Local 79. "It's like a chain reaction when there's livelihoods
at stake."
The word spread so quickly that guys were
soon calling guys who had already been called.
"It just blossomed," Mancusi says.
By the organizers' account, they alerted
the police on Friday and again on Monday to expect between 30,000
and 40,000 at a demonstration set for 8 a.m. on June 30.
"We did warn them," Mancusi says. "For some reason, they didn't want to believe us."
The organizers, meanwhile, distributed a
"Rally Reminder" to the union members.
"All members of our affiliated unions
should know this will be a PEACEFUL demonstration," the leaflet
read. "Let's cooperate with the NYPD and make this demonstration
a success."
On Monday night, Mancusi joined in making
a sound tape for the rally. The songs included Marvin Gaye's "What's
Going On?" and the Young Rascals' "People Got to Be
Free."
"I felt like I was preparing for a Vietnam
protest," Mancusi says.
As dawn neared, Mancusi and some fellow organizers
climbed into the "organizing truck." The inflatable
rat was in the back.
"I got two of them," Mancusi says.
"We got a place where they make all sorts of animals. We
got a brochure."
Rain began to fall, but any worries Mancusi
harbored were alleviated as he neared the corner of 44th St. and
Madison Ave. He saw fellow construction workers in doorways and
under awnings.
"Guys were huddling everywhere,"
Mancusi says.
Mancusi and the other organizers hopped out
with a box of 50 American flags. They began to distribute them
as the rain magically ceased and the appointed hour neared.
"When the rain stopped, it was amazing,"
Mancusi says. "People were just coming from everywhere."
The tape started up. Thousands began to dance
and clap, as free as the Rascals' song said people just got to
be.
"It was quite a scene," Mancusi
says. "To really see the solidarity."
The inflatable rat was, of course, welcomed
with cheers.
"People love the rat," Mancusi
says.
The demonstrators then started for the construction site. Mancusi was with a contingent of about 1,000 that went across 44th St. and then turned up Sixth Ave. His group embraced the other contingents they encountered as they marched
in the shadows of the spires that had been
erected with the sweat and muscle and skill and nerve of the city's
building trades.
"Everybody calling each other brother
and sister," Mancusi says. "Plasterers, laborers, electricians,
carpenters. The roofers were even out."
The police seemed not at all prepared when
the demonstrators arrived at the building site where 5,000 workers
had gathered three weeks before. A few pushes came to shove.
"It got a little rough, but it quieted
down," Mancusi says.
The demonstrators then headed off to work
having amazed the city they had built spire by spire with no greater
demand than decent wages and no protection other than their unions.
They felt they had now made something of neither steel nor concrete.
"Definitely history was made today," Mancusi said.