Forty Years after the Hard Hat Riot, A Different Response from Organized Labor to Wall Street Protests

Forty Years after the Hard Hat Riot, A Different Response from Organized Labor to Wall Street Protests

Greg Smithsimon: The Hard Hat Riot and Labor’s Response to Occupy Wall Street

At the edge of Liberty Plaza, across from the World Trade Center, a group of protesters from Occupy Wall Street began a ragtag drumming circle last Thursday morning. A handful of others danced around them. At lunchtime over a hundred construction workers streamed out of the steel frames of the rising Trade Center office buildings and headed for the park. What happened when the protesters and hard hats met was shocking: nothing. The construction workers, highly visible in orange vests or dayglow yellow shirts, sat in groups on the benches, ate their lunch, and watched the dancers.

This is not always what happens when protesters and labor unions meet in Lower Manhattan. On May 8, 1970, high-school and college students came to Wall Street to protest the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia and the murder of students at Kent State by the National Guard. Hundreds of construction workers streamed out of their work sites on their lunch break and charged the protesters. Construction workers beat protesters with crowbars, fists, and their hard hats. Seventy people were injured. The police did little, and only six were arrested.

Long before I had the political understanding to comprehend what came to be known as the Hard Hat Riot, I had heard the story from the father of a childhood friend. The riot was his proudest moment. He had been a construction worker in New York at the time and recalled it fondly. Years later, he would tell the story of marching down Wall Street and growl with bravado, ?We showed those hippies.?

The Hard Hat Riot was organized by Peter J. Brennan, for over thirty years the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. The protests were organized around notions of patriotism, culture clash (some workers singled out young men with long hair for beatings), and most of all the flag. The hard hats had marched behind a U.S. flag and initially demanded that they be allowed to install it on the steps where the protesters were standing. They later marched to City Hall to raise the flag that was flying at half mast for the students killed at Kent State, and even tore down nearby Trinity Church?s Episcopalian and Red Cross flags, apparently because they were different.

Maybe that?s why someone at the Occupy Wall Street event gave my seven-year-old son a U.S. flag: as inoculation. One of the dancers waved a big American flag as well. Particularly after September 11, many workers have U.S. flag stickers on their hard hats. But without an instigator like Brennan, the construction workers downtown today don?t show signs of hostility.

Instead, in my two days watching construction workers watch the protesters, it?s been a careful dance. The construction workers practice studious inattention. They look, but don?t look. Occasionally one will do a little hip-shaking dance to the music to entertain his friends. But the two groups are careful to respect each other and keep their social if not physical distance. A woman who had apparently slept in the park was sitting on a bench surrounded by beefy guys in dayglow shirts. She put on a cardboard protest sign then removed her shirt. Topless but concealed behind a single piece of cardboard, she freshened up with some underarm deodorant, then got up and walked through the park with her sign. The construction workers played it cool. They were likewise blasé about a topless woman walking casually around the park with Occupy Wall Street slogans written across her stomach. One man in a dayglow vest with a high-end camera asked if he could take pictures. She posed, and he laughed with her and snapped some shots.

Of course, the fact that protesters and construction workers were keeping their distance was a disappointment as well. Wouldn?t it make sense to reach out to working-class America with a message condemning greed and class warfare by the elites and demanding a better deal for working people? After all, it wasn?t just protesters that had slogans. Plenty of those yellow shirts had union logos on them with slogans like ?Live Better?Work Union? and ?Yes We Can, Yes We Have, Yes We Will.?

Although the lunchtime crowd was timid, Occupy Wall Street is quickly building bridges with the city?s largest labor unions. Protesters from Liberty Plaza have joined rallies for the Communication Workers of America strike against Verizon (which is holding up contract resolution for 45,000 workers), for Teamsters locked out by Sotheby?s, for postal workers, and for union pilots hurt by the merger of Continental and United Airlines.

Unions have returned the favor, recognizing the power of both the message and the medium of the protest, which captures the innovations of the Arab Spring, this summer?s Israeli social justice movement, and Spanish anti-austerity occupations. A march is planned for this Wednesday, October 5 from City Hall to Liberty Plaza, with 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Transport Workers Union Local 100, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Communications Workers of America rallying to support the occupation. In a far cry from the days of the Hard Hat Riot, Jason Ide, the president of Teamsters Local 814, told Crain?s New York Business, ?What?s so great about it is they?ve managed to capture a feeling that?s out there that decisions are being made that aren?t helping 99 percent of society.? A spokesperson for the Transit Workers Union Local 100 told the Village Voice, ?It?s kind of a natural alliance with the young people and the students?they?re voicing our message, why not join them? On many levels, our workers feel an affinity with the kids.? Solidarity doesn?t flow from abstract ideals; it develops from concrete contributions. Protesters have shown their commitment by logging hours supporting union causes, and unions return the favor.

How about on the other side of the class divide? In 1970, there were conflicting reports about which side Wall Street bankers were on. Some conservatives claimed that the suits joined the hard hats in bashing the protesters. But at least one partner at Lehman Brothers, Robert A. Bernhard, tried to protect a protester from assault; he and another white-collar worker were beaten as a result. This time around, unions are facing off against Wall Street. At a parallel occupation in Boston, protesters report that ?Boston?s office workers are coming to meet us on lunch breaks. They bring food and love.? It can be lonely for that 1 percent, eating lunch alone. How many suits will join the protest this time around?