New Haven Barks Back at the Wind from Wisconsin

Bonnie Cohen has never been in a union. She and her placard-bearing dog Lilith marched alongside thousands of labor supporters to the New Haven Green, anyway, because Cohen saw her future—and the hard-won gains of her family’s past—at stake.

Cohen and Lilith (pictured above) participated in a spirited rally Wednesday afternoon as a wave that began in Wisconsin washed up on New Haven’s shores—an outpouring of public support for workers in both government and the private sector battling layoffs and, in states like Wisconsin, loss of collective bargaining rights.

Unions and union supporters organized the rally. New Haveners from outside labor’s ranks joined the rank and file to fill the Green and shout for a better deal for workers.

There were teachers, laborers, steelworkers, Teamsters, Yale union workers and city workers. Walking alongside them were parents, kids and students; old-school activists and youngsters making first forays into protest. The sea of faces was diverse, in terms of race, ethnicity, age and class.

“I grew up in a family that remembers when,” said Cohen, 66, who lives on George Street. She’s descended from garment workers and others who fought for better working conditions, and struck when they didn’t get them.

Cohen said those gains are threatened now, in places like Wisconsin, Michigan—and New Haven, where employers from Yale to City Hall have been eliminating hundreds of jobs amid the recession. That makes her sad.

“I came just because I’m appalled at what’s going on in this country,” she said.

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