Bernie Rocks Buffalo. He Also Did Something Else. Visiting Local 1122

[cal04]

Sanders turned out a huge crowd. He also took a notable detour

Before Bernie Sanders spoke to over 11,000 people on Monday at the University of Buffalo, he made a brief unscheduled stop. The crowd in the alumni arena was more diverse than most Sanders rallies—not as diverse as Buffalo itself, a city where non-Hispanic whites are in the minority, but with a greater number of black and brown faces than I’d seen in other rallies in other parts of the country. And like every Sanders rally I’ve been to, the crowd was happy to be there, shouting “Ber-nie! Ber-nie!” at every rumor of the candidate’s appearance, and gleefully taking selfies of one another before, during, and after Sanders’s 90 minute speech.

The audience at Sanders’s first stop was a lot quieter, a lot older, a lot whiter—and a whole lot smaller. They were pleased to see Sanders, but there was no mistaking the scene at Local 1122 of the Communications Workers of America for a rock concert or a sporting event. These were 25 shop stewards at Verizon who had to prepare their members to go on strike on Wednesday morning, and the mood in the room was a mixture of anxiety and defiant anger.

“It’s getting old, having to fight just to keep our jobs,” said Larry Turner, a 25 year veteran. “Ever since the merger with Bell Atlantic [in 2000] it seems like we have to keep fighting just to stay in place. They were supposed to be building FiOS [fast broadband] here in Buffalo and they just stopped.”

When Sanders arrived, the stewards, who had been discussing the likelihood that Verizon would try to discipline or discharge members, interrupted their strategy session to listen to the man Larry Cohen, the former president of the union who now leads Labor for Bernie, told them had always had their backs. “I want to thank you for standing up to the outrageous greed of corporate America,” Sanders told them, pointing out that Verizon had booked $ 39 Billion in profits over the past three years. The company recently bid billions for the loss-making Yahoo—yet continues to demand its workers pay more for their health coverage.

http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-rocks-buffalo/

[highprincipleswork]

1. Bernie should be the choice of every labor union in the U.S., hands down, and probably would be if..

they just the union members have a say.

[pacalo]

2. “It’s getting old, having to fight just to keep our jobs."

We need Bernie, not a mob boss who's in this for more trade deals that enrich only the 1%.

[azmom]

3. Kick

[CoffeeCat]

4. Thank you for posting this very moving article

cal04.

Wow. This one made my eyes a bit misty. This article beautifully captured the spirit, drive and compassion of the Sanders campaign.

I love that Bernie does these amazing rallies, and that he also showed up in a more intimate setting with these 15 union workers.

Bernie cares a great deal. He's giving so much if himself--emotionally and physically--to make our country and world a better place.

Keep these great NY articles coming! NY is such a rich, diverse, intriguing backdrop for the campaign. So many stories!

[Kittycat]

5. Kick. Great article!

Thank you for sharing.

[Dragonfli]

6. His message resonates here, we were a thriving city full of blue collar middle class families once,

with a huge amount of diverse factory jobs available, now, it is either high end medical work, or multiple min. wage jobs for most of us.

I began with a loss of jobs at the Bethlehem Steel plant, a once giant industrial plant with well over a dozen mills in neighboring Lackawanna, a city of connected factories that touches much of our border and employed not only the bulk of that city, but, as it was a small city with a large complex of steel plants taking up most of the area (nearly all of it close now, I think one of the smallest mills is still running, but we are talking an entire city of Steel Mills in it's day, nearly decimated by trade deals), well more than half of those employed there lived in buffalo.

They paid well and were union, and now Lackawanna is basically a ghost town of poverty crime and desperate people. That happened due to Trade relations with China a source of cheaper (albeit far less quality steel). We lost most of the others due to NAFTA. Starting with the American Standard plant in Riverside (an area in buffalo) and the rest followed like dominoes in less than twenty years.

Anybody that has read my Ops knows of the poverty that surrounds me, there are pockets of wealth and gentrification, but mostly, we are a city of poor and working poor, our saving grace is great universities that bring in some money, and state of the art medical facilities. But lacking a very high level of education, this is not a place to find the American dream anymore, only a place to grow poorer by the day, once it was a showpiece of the American dream, with a largely blue collar middle class, but we have fallen hard, hard like a mountain on a blade of grass since those times, due to free trade. A big issue of Sanders' and one he consistently fought hard trying to prevent, if others had helped him fight this would not have happened to my city.

Centrism and neo-liberalism utterly destroyed my city and completely decimated Lachawanna, that is part of the reason he will get support here, as "we get" what free trade does in a personal way.

The other support he will get here are because of his policies on education, and student debt, as I said, other than Mcjobs, one has to jump to a very high level of education here to escape poverty, best if it involves the medical field.

Besides the long time city dwelling students UB attracts, students from around the country, and around the world come here to learn.

It is a City made for his solutions, our infrastructure is completely falling apart as well, so that too is relevant.



In summary, I am not in the least bit surprised he could pack any venue here.

[Sinistrous]

7. As a Buffalonian in exile, I recommend this post.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

9. Sinistrous and Dragonfli

Thank you both so much for these posts. As a former native New Yorker, it is my sincerest hope that April 19 will be a watershed moment for the rest of the country.

[Duckfan]

8. You reminded me of something that makes me mad thinking of it...

They paid well and were union, and now Lackawanna is basically a ghost town of poverty crime and desperate people. That happened due to Trade relations with China a source of cheaper (albeit far less quality steel). We lost most of the others due to NAFTA. Starting with the American Standard plant in Riverside (an area in buffalo) and the rest followed like dominoes in less than twenty years

The Bay Bridge that connects Oakland to San Francisco was just rebuilt using steel from China. I was in Calif. at the time and saw the early stages of the construction. A lot of people were really pissed when it came out that steel from China was used. Last I remember from a story in the Sacramento Bee 2 years ago is faulty stuff is now being discovered like cracks in the steel. This is what happens when people make stupid decisions of using sub-quality stuff.

[Dragonfli]

10. The China steel was crap over 30 years ago (there was a film out trying to defend the factory)

A film that showed some samples of imported Chinese steel of varying type: bar steel, I steel, roll steel, etc subjected to the same strength, malleability, etc. a whole range of other tests, including, x-ray, and microscopic evidence of how well it (i don't think this is the right word as it't been a long time) "crystallized" (a key factor determined by manuf. processes that affects it's strength as I recall) compared to the same tests that were always done on random samples of batches produced by the plant.

They rated it as so poor as "unsaleable" by plant standards for "any purpose", they had different ratings and some slightly bad test results grade the steel as marketable for some purposes but not things like construction or other things, this was long ago and my memory is not what it used t be so I don't remember the grading details or minutia, bottom line, the steel sucked bad.

In the time since then, do you think the steel from China has improved (likely increasing costs in production) or gotten worse to save more money? My bet is on the latter.

ETA: the ex-ray tests would have revealed most of the flaws that cause cracking (tho other factors of poor strength could account for some of it) that was the main reason I believe for the x-ray scrutiny, I guess they don't bother with that sort of thing in China.

[AmBlue]

11. His hair is like a halo...

...when you see him from behind. I somehow don't think that's an accident.