Brooklyn, New York: March of the Unemployed the Day After the Presidential Election, Nov. 7, 2012
4:00 PM
From Brooklyn’s Barclays Center
to New York’s First Public Hearing on Fare Hikes
Marchers To Demand Jobs Promised at Barclays & A Rollback of the Subway Fare
One day after the Presidential election, no matter who is elected, the NYC Unemployed Council will hold a march from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to the Brooklyn Marriott, the site of New York City’s first public hearing on fare hikes.
The opening rally will demand that Barclays Center come through with the thousands of jobs its developers promised. The march will then go to the MTA public hearing to call for a rollback of the transit fare to aid in the recovery of the city’s unemployed, underemployed and homeless, who rely on public transportation, often to look for work.
The November 7th march was originally scheduled to take place in Manhattan’s Union Square. Organizer Messiah Rhodes said that the location was changed to Brooklyn, where, on that day, the city’s first public hearing on the upcoming fare hikes will take place.
“This new round of fare hikes – the fourth in four years — will be devastating to millions of riders, especially the growing ranks of the jobless,” Rhodes said. “We are starting our march at Barclays Center, which, like the MTA, it is a symbol of subsidies for the 1% at the expense of the 99%. Where are the thousands of full-time, union jobs that were promised to Brooklyn as a condition of Ratner’s development?”
“Also, Barclays Center’s brand-new $76 million subway station shows that the ‘cash-strapped MTA’ – as it constantly referred to in the media – is able to come up with cash when the cronies of the MTA Board stand to make a lot of money,” Rhodes said.
“If Barclay’s Bank can finance a new station for a basketball arena, then Chase Manhattan Bank can finance a reduction in the fare. Citibank can finance the expansion of services for disabled riders and Bank of America can finance the re-opening of shut-down stations and closed bus lines,” Rhodes said.
“The banks, the true power behind the MTA, are sitting on trillions of dollars of our money. It’s time they used that money to benefit the people,” Rhodes said. “This is the first of many actions and events to raise awareness of the unemployed crisis in New York City where over 1.4 million or one in every seven New Yorker is unemployed, underemployed or has given up looking for work.”
Called by NYC Unemployed Council
