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United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard has a message to the flea party whiny-whiners still camping out instead of sleeping in their parents' basements -- playtime is over. Just in case the Occupy movement fails -- in other words, when it fails -- Gerard is urging union members to fill that gaping void with "more militancy." "And no wonder people are occupying. We oughta be doing more than occupying parks. We oughta start occupying bridges. We start oughta occupying the banks places themselves."

http://www.occupyoakland.org/openforums/announcements/ Occupy Oakland organizers are asking Oakland residents, workers and supporters to participate in a General Strike on Wednesday, Nov. 2. They're asking residents to head to downtown Oakland, 14th and Broadway for mass gatherings at 9am, 12 noon, and 5pm. A growing number of local Labor organizations have endorsed the strike, including: 1.SEIU LOCAL 1021 Call to Action for Nov 2U.C. UAW Local Support of General Strike 2.Alameda Central Labor Council endorses Nov 2 – 3.Phillipine Airline Workers Back Oakland General Strike Call of Occupy Oakland 4.Berkeley Federation of Teachers Calls On Teachers to participate in the Wednesday, November...

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Occupy LA movement grew by the thousands Wednesday as unionized workers, caregivers and their patients joined the call for an end to corporate greed and Congress to put Americans back to work. The demonstrators held large signs, chanted loudly and blew whistles as they marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the steps of City Hall. Organized by the Service Employees International Union, the demonstration was in support of President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act....

Big Labor continues to fund and support the radical “Occupy” strategy with the announcement that the SEIU union in California has joined the Los Angeles protest. The union bosses are protesting to demand another taxpayer bailout for government workers contained in the Obama “jobs” bill.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread from big cities to small towns, mobilizing a diverse group of people from young workers to grandmothers. Even “The New Yorker” has taken note, with a cover this week that portrays a group of “protestors” who have occupied Wall Street since its inception–and who would like to keep it that way. Take a look here.  Meanwhile unions and union members around the country are throwing their support to the movement that is demanding Wall Street be held accountable, that financial institutions invest some of the trillions in profits they are sitting on into job creation...

While Marxists spout equality and equal worth, they are not above claiming ownership of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Turns out some are more equal than others. LaborNotes reports: “Unions and other sympathetic groups called out their members to defend the [Wall Street] occupation—rallying to a phenomenon that’s put wage cuts, layoffs, and foreclosures squarely in the national debate. ... “Red-shirted Communications Workers—many of them recently on strike against Verizon—graduate student members of the United Auto Workers, building services workers in their SEIU Local 32BJ purple T-shirts, and Transport Workers Local 100 members were among the unionists visible in the...

As Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have gone national and now global, observers are taking note of the prominent role of labor unions in this anti-business crusade. The rote denunciations of “corporate greed” at these events could be lifted from almost any AFL-CIO convention speech. This doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, that union organizers are putting words in protestors’ mouths. Yet it does underscore the existence of a longstanding alliance between organized labor and street radicalism. Given their overlapping worlds, it’s fitting that one of the prime movers behind this far-Left sturm und drang is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),...

Unions Assume A Support Role For Occupy Movement by Jeff Brady October 29, 2011Attend just about any of the Occupy Wall Street-inspired protests across the country and you're likely to see a group of people dressed in matching union T-shirts somewhere in the crowd. Typically, they're older than your average Occupy protester but no less enthusiastic in their chanting."I've been doing this [protesting] for five decades," said Mike Wisniewski at a recent Occupy Philadelphia protest at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Wisniewski says he's a university library employee and has been a union member since 1972.Labor unions...