COMMENTARYwusa_376 121..

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LABOR AND OCCUPY WALL STREET: COMMON
CAUSES AND UNEASY ALLIANCES
Benjamin Heim Shepard
Forty-two years after the Hard Riot of May 1970, organized labor seems to have embraced the goals of a
new social movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Both movements have beneted from mutual association,
with labor nding new vitality in its connection with a mobilized social movement. And OWS has been able
to dismiss the charge that this is a counterculture movement, by connecting itself with labor. Labor helped
mobilize a successful action in Wall Street on May 12, 2011, which anticipated OWS. Still, challenges
remain if labor is to maintain its uneasy alliance with this anarchist-inspired movement. Labor must learn
to show solidity and respect not only to the message of OWS but to the movements nonhierarchical
organizing process if the alliance to endure.
One of the rst union leaders to join Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was
Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) of the City
University of New York (CUNY), who came to speak at Zuccotti Square on
September 22, 2011. For members of the PSC, OWS was an extension of the
actions of May 12, 2011 when labor joined a coalition of health care activists to
rally on Wall Street. That spring day included teach-ins, unpermitted marches,
and mass civil disobedience throughout the nancial district of New York City.
Immigrant groups joined by housing and public health nonprots, labor unions
of teachers and service employees, students, and peace activists. Education
moved south from City Hall, while human services marched west from South
Shore Seaport, with youth, transportation, immigration, and housing marched
east to converge with the peace and jobs blocks at Wall Street. Each collaborated
in a spirit of cooperation, respect, solidarity, and nonviolence. Cyclists orga-
nized a roving bike-block/communications team to report on the conditions of
the labyrinthine streets of Lower Manhattan. While the teachers who marched
downtown from City Hall had a permit, the same was not true of the other
groups who intended to converge on Wall Street to push the bankers to pay their
fair share. Marching on Wall Street had been part of labors playing card all year.
Occupying Wall Street was a way for unions to advance a counter narrative
to the trends of the last four decades which has seen worker wages contract,
Workingusa
The Journal of Labor and Society
WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society 1089-7011 Volume 15 March 2012 pp. 121134
The Authors
WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society 2012 Immanuel Ness and Wiley Periodicals, Inc
while corporate prots inate. As Barbara Bowen argued, there is another
narrative to were broke. But to move that alternative story forward, activists
would have to push back. From Madison to Albany, unions had been doing so
with marches, rallies, lobby days, and gestures of direct action, for months
before September. For labor, the direct action model of May 12 was round one
of OWS.
On the one side, a do-it-yourself movement aimed at liberating public space
and by extension a public sector for the people; on the other a police force as
large as a small army ready to protect and preserve business as usual in the
nancial sector. Chants of Make Wall Street Pay! echoed through the nancial
district as the simultaneous rallies began. Their chants and pleas were echoing
into every nook and cranny a bond trader could hide, a member of Times Up!
bike-block later reected. An amazing gathering of unions, nonprots, and
advocacy groups. With one goal in mind: Make Wall Street pay their fair share,
so that the weakest and neediest arent taking the brunt of the economic collapse
Wall Street caused in the rst place. Education is a Right, Fight, Fight, Fight!
screamed hoards of students, watching tuitions rise along with class size, their
futures jeopardized by the austerity program. Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got
Sold Out! group after group roared throughout the cavernous pre-automotive
corridors of Lower Manhattan, in a crescendo as the police scrambled to pen off
intersecting streets and as the branches of protesters joined each other. And for
a while there, Wall Street was the peoples street. As they poured down and out
of the tight corridor, activists were greeted by stilt walkers and the Rude
Mechanical Orchestra blaring Were Not Going to Take It amid a sea of
people. Eventually, people careened west to Battery Park where 10,000 turned
the southernmost tip of Manhattan into our Tahrir Square, our public commons
for a post-rally celebration.
For well over a generation, unions which support the 99 percent had seen
their gains eroded by the 1 percent. Many recognized the struggle over public
space, including in the nancial district, as part of a larger battle. Make no
mistake: the current attack on the public sector, teachers, students, and services,
is paramount to a war on the poor, noted Mike Fabricant of the PSC. With the
public sphere threatened on all sides, the streets of New York represent a space
for countless narratives of contestation and resistance. The struggle over who
controls informal public space is one of the most important front lines in waging
a counter offensive to the present blitzkrieg on public services and unions,
noted Fabricant. It is a struggle taking place everyday in countless ways through-
out the corridors of New Yorks contested public spaces.
Finishing the May 12 rally, PSC member Ron Hayduk stood in Bowling
Green Park, with thousands of other union members, and declared that we should
come down more often. Bowling Green should be our Tahrir Square, he argued.
By fall, his ideas started to take fruition, only a fewblocks uptown with OWS. For
many in labor, OWS represented an extension of the global justice and anti-
austerity movements which converged on Wall Street on May 12, dovetailing
between struggles of public sector workers in Madison and democracy activists in
122 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
Tahrir Square. Each movement had made a claim on public space. Democracy
not Plutocracy declared a sign carried by one of the OWS activist Saturday
September 24th. Almost immediately, labor recognized the message of the signs
in Zuccotti Park as a challenge the growing social and economic inequalities
ranging from disparities in wealth to access to democratic institutions.
Faced with a democracy decit, labor was taking it back to the streets. In
the weeks before May 12, members of the PSC were arrested at Governor
Cuomos ofce chanting, Tax the Rich, Not the Poor: Stop the War on
CUNY. At a time when education for training and other human services are
more in demand than ever, funding for these programs remained under attack.
The prime attack on these programs was from the Koch Brothers, number four
on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. The Koch Brothers funded the
Tea Party and the campaign of Governor Cuomo in New York. If ever there
was a stark contrast between the needs of the 1 and the 99 percent, it was the
Koch brothers funding of the attack on public sector workers, billionaires vs.
workers.
We made the decision to risk arrest because we cannot allow the injustice
of this budget to stand, said Barbara Bowen, president of the PSC, who was
among the protesters. We have lobbied and rallied and written in support of
a fair budget, but our voices have not been heard. Albany is on the verge of
passing a budget that is so damaging to our students and so fundamentally
unjust that we had to take a stand. We are educatorswe spend our lives
teaching students how to challenge false premises, and the false premise of this
budget must be challenged.
Gradually, the PSC was moving in a more radical direction, away from
boring rallies toward direct action. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory,
Frederich Engels declared. Throughout 2011, labor re-embraced this. The
CUNY faculty and staff were joined in their act of civil disobedience by CUNY
students. Members of New York Communities for Change, the Real Rent
Reform Campaign, and Voices Of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL-
NY) also took part in the protest. Through these actions, these groups collec-
tively argued that the state budget should not put the interests of corporations,
the wealthy, and the super-rich above the needs of ordinary New Yorkers.
Research from the Fiscal Policy Institute showed that the richest 1 percent of
earners receives 35 percent of all income collected in New York State. In New
York City, income inequality is even more dramatic: 44 percent of all income is
collected by the top 1 percent there. The nancial services industry was once
again making record prots and real estate interests had spent millions on public
relations (PR) and lobby campaigns to weaken rent control, undermine teachers
contract rights, and cut services for working New Yorkers. The wealthy, labor
argued, could afford to pay their fair share. Yet labor needed to connect this
passion with the strength of a growing movement, which included more young
people. In OWS, they found common cause.
Union members had been at OWS since the beginning of the encampment
(see Writers 2012). By Thursday, Barbara Bowen and members of the PSC
123 COMMENTARY
arrived at Zuccotti to speak out in support. Were honored to be here with you
today, noted Bowen during the OWS general assembly on September 22. And
there is good reason for this solidarity among movements ghting the inuence
of Wall Street and the ever-expanding inequality taking hold. CUNY campus
after campus, union after union recognized the pulse taking place with OWS.
As the occupation gained steam, unions showed increasing solidarity with
the burgeoning movement and the 99 percent not beneting from business as
usual. October 4th, Barbara Bowen sent out the following message to the PSC:
Dear Members,
Dont miss what may be a historic march tomorrow, Wednesday, October 5. The
citys labor unionsincluding the PSChave come together in record time with
student and community groups to demonstrate our solidarity with Occupy Wall
Street. Together we will show the force behind our common demand for an
alternative to economic austerity for 99% of the population and unprecedented
wealth for 1%. . . . Look for the red signs that say PSC Supports You.
I look forward to being with you there. This is a demonstration not to miss.
Barbara Bowen
The rally and labor march the next day, October 5, included a mix of unions
and community groups, including AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT
UP), the Professional Staff Congress, VOCAL, Families United for Racial and
Economic Equality (FUREE), and members of other various harm reduction
and health groups. Many carried signs with distinct messages including: Lost a
Job, Found an Occupation was one of my favorites. A nun carried a sign noting:
My Soup Kitchen Needs a Bail Out! Another spoofed the New York Times and
corporate media, All the News Were Paid to Print. Throughout the rally,
some sang songs. Michael Franti jammed, ring up the crowd. A group of
women with a stand-up base and acoustic guitars sang, We Shall Not Be
Moved joined by many in the crowd.
Banks got bailed out, we got sold out! a ve-year-old child chanted on his
fathers shoulders as some twenty thousand of us moved like a slow amoeba from
Foley Square down to Zuccotti Park. There, Reverend Billy was preaching. As
the labor rally arrived at Zuccotti, a smaller group continued the rally, moving to
break through the barricades protecting the banks at Wall Street. And the police
retaliated, exposing a panicked frenzy of batons and sts reminiscent of the
Tompkins Square Park riots. The next morning, the front pages of the Daily
News, New York Times, and even Fox News offered sympathetic accounts.
New York is a Union Town
Over the next few weeks, union members would become more and more
visible at Zuccotti and other OWS events and vice versa. Union members
arrived in force to support the eviction defense on October 14. Later in the
day, members of OWS joined the picket line in front of Verizon headquarters.
124 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
They carried signs declaring We are the 99% linking worker struggles with a
movement against corporate greed. Throughout the following weeks, OWS
members spoke out in support movements for health care, higher education,
and efforts to oppose hydro-fracking, an energy industry plan to produce gas
through drilling the earth. Of this multi-issue agenda, common cause between
labor and struggles against expanding inequality would become a foundation.
On November 9th, OWS members marched to join in support of the picket line
at Sothebys, where workers had been locked out, several carrying signs declar-
ing Jobs, Not Snobs. As patrons entered the Upper East Side auction house,
activists implored them now to cross the picket line noting, These artists would
have hated you! and Greed is not good! Others screamed, All day, all week,
occupy Sothebys! Art for the masses, not the upper classes! and Whats
disgusting, union busting! For many in OWS, the opulent Sothebys refusal to
even negotiate with their workers felt like a perfect metaphor for the 1 percents
treatment of the other 99 (Seltzer 2011).
October 27th, a student leader from New York City College of Technology
involved with OWS attended a chapter meeting of the PSC, the union repre-
senting City University employers. Pushing the union to back its rhetoric with
action, he asked the Union to back a resolution calling for the Union to formally
support OWS and put its resources behind this effort. I forwarded the motion,
which was seconded and passed by the oor. For many of us, OWS seemed
to mirror the unions agenda, including a push for the governor to maintain a
millionaires tax.
Later that day, the whole delegate assembly of the PSC passed the following
resolution:
RESOLUTION:
PROFESSIONAL STAFF CONGRESS/CUNY SUPPORTS OCCUPY
WALL STREET
Whereas: The Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, the union representing
25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, strongly opposes
the imposition of further economic austerity on our university and the working-
class and middle-class populations it serves, and continues to campaign for
equitable distribution of wealth and progressive taxation. Occupy Wall Street
has brilliantly focused national and world attention on these issues by naming
Wall Street as the source of the economic injustice and by challenging limits on
the use of public space through an occupation. Occupy Wall Street-organized at
a moment at which income inequality in the U.S. is greater than at any time
since the eve of the Depression, in the state with the greatest income inequality
in the country and the city with the greatest income inequality in the state-has
dared to question the primacy of the nance industry in American political and
economic life. In doing so, OWS has shown how the political imagination can
be expanded and social vision renewed.
And in little more than a month, OWS has changed public discourse and may
be beginning to change public policy. Largely because of OWS, political of-
cials, the corporate median and the class whose interests they represent have
125 COMMENTARY
been forced to address the radical inequality in this country, creating an opening
for unions, community groups and others to press with new urgency for long-
standing economic justice demands.
By claiming public space for a public purpose, OWS has increased the freedom
for all of us to take political action. Remaining confrontational but non-violent,
OWS has exposed the criminalization of peaceful protest in this city and created
a space for all of us to exercise our right to speak up and act up.
And by reimagining the public square, OWS has also highlighted the impor-
tance of education. Education is everywhere at Zuccotti Park, with protesters
educating each other, creating a free lending-library, developing working-
groups to examine political questions, and initiating a free nomadic university
to bring college to the people of New York, in the boroughs and streets where
they live.
While it is too soon to know what political movements will grow from OWS, it
is already clear that OWS has changed the political landscape, not least because
of its ability to nd common cause between progressive activists and organized
labor and to recognize contributions of students as essential to political change.
CUNY students were among the original OWS group and have continued to
take important roles in its development, always pressing for more public
funding for CUNY.
And whereas:
The PSC was among the rst labor unions to show support for OWS, with our
members volunteering their time, and the union offering support through
organizing members at demonstrations, providing space for meetings and other
assistance.
Be it resolved:
That the PSC commends Occupy Wall Street for its nerve and imagination, for
its refusal to accept the unacceptable and its willingness to explore new forms of
political organization and protest. The PSC will continue to work with OWS-
organizing members, as appropriate, in support; helping wherever appropriate
to develop its nomadic university; and offering material and nancial support
as determined by the PSC executive council.
PSC would move support the November 17th, 2011.
November 17, 2011
Unions were to be meeting at 3:00 p.m. in anticipation of the 5:00 p.m.
scheduled rally at Foley Square. Students had already started marching down-
town from Union Square.
ii
Take The Square5:00 p.m. declared literature for the November 17
OWS action (OWS 2011). That morning thousands had clogged up the nan-
cial district with gestures of direct action, slowing the start of the market in
between over two hundred arrests. The call for the afternoon action started
in waves with a 3-p.m. student march to join the 5-p.m. Union Rally. At 5 pm,
tens of thousands of people will gather at Foley Square (just across from
City Hall) in solidarity with laborers demanding jobs to rebuild this countrys
126 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
127 COMMENTARY
infrastructure and economy, the call continued (OWS 2011). A gospel choir
and a marching band will also be performing. Afterwards we will march to our
bridges. Lets make it as musical a march as possiblebring your songs, your
voice, your spirit! Our Musical on the bridge will culminate in a festival of light
as we mark the two-month anniversary of the #occupy movement, and our
commitment to shining light into our broken economic and political system.
Resist austerity. Rebuild the economy. Reclaim our democracy.
Foley Square was lled with countless labor groups, including Unite, the
CUNY PSC, and members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU),
among others. As OWS activists arrived, SEIU played a security role, ltering
people who could walk near their midpark staging area, where people could park
their bikes, or generally take part in a rally in public space. We brought labor
into this coalition, noted one man from anarchist queer organizing circles who
had been part of the movement from day one. I dont know what they were
doing, but they were awful, noted an elder woman from the Grannies Peace
Brigade. The conict was not widespread, but it was reective of a clash between
the formalized structure of the labor movement and egalitarian consensus-based
model of OWS, open to everyone who wants to join the space (Graeber 2011).
That evening, 32,000 people rallied across the Brooklyn Bridge. As they
marched, many were surprised to see a bat signal across the Verizon Building
with the 99%.
Look around, you are a part/ of a global uprising/ we are a cry/from the
heart/-of the world/we are unstoppable/another world is possible/Occupy
Earth/we are winning/it is the beginning of the beginning/do not be afraid/love.
The bat signal was an image seen around the world. Just as important, it was
the second well-attended rally in a little over a month. Two weeks, later thou-
sands of OWS and labor activists joined a similar march from Harold Square to
Union Square (Glorioso 2011).
Labor, OWS, and Social Movements
Bolstered by its ties with OWS, labor felt like a social movement throughout
the fall Occupation. The movements ability to position itself as the voice of the
majority has been bolstered by its alliance with the trade union movement,
notes PSC member Jackie DiSalvo (2011). This bond between labor and
militant activists who take to the streets, occupy public spaces and are willing to
risk arrest for their cause is unprecedented in my lifetime. This bond marks a
stark contrast with the era of the Hard Hat Riot of May 1970 when trade union
members clashed with antiwar activists who converged on Wall Street (Freeman
2000; Smithsimon 2011). From the 1960s until the 1980s, many unions felt
conservative, often losing support from movement activists. And while the much
was made of the Teamsters and Turtles alliance of the Seattle World Trade
Organization protests of 1999 when labor supported the work of trade and
environmental activists, with the International Longshoreman Worker Union
128 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
129 COMMENTARY
shutting down the West Coast Ports in solidarity with the World Trade Orga-
nization Protests.
In the next global justice convergence action against the International
Monetary Fund/World Bank in Washington (2000), trade union leaders actu-
ally called for labor not to participate in the days blockade, and organized
labor failed to play much of a role in global justice protests after this. Orga-
nized labor beneted from the momentum created by Seattle but was unable
to show sustained support for the Alterglobalization movement which had
given it new life. Much of this hostility was born of a reticence for organized
labor to support anarchist-based direct action movements. And certainly some
130 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
of these tensions could be felt in Foley Square on November 17, 2011 when
members of SEIU playing a security role directing and ltering people in
and out of the center of Foley Square. As of now, this appears to be an isolated
example. Yet, if labor could recognize and respect the anarchist roots and
organizational practices of OWS, this could certainly benet both movements
(Graeber 2011). After all, labor has a long history of strikes and direct action
of its own (Brecher 2012). The current labor movement could do well to
embrace this tradition.
After all, Occupy Wall Street offers a far different picture of a movement
which has beneted from the solidarity of trade unions, which seem to under-
stand that their support for this movement only strengthens their push for a
fairer economic policy for all. Students and workers, shut this city down,
screamed the hoards of students and labor activists at the Baruch College (City
University of New York) tuition protests on November 28. Thousands of OWS
activists were joined by union members romping up and down Lexington
Avenue during the tuition increase protests at Baruch, zigging and zagging east
and west, anywhere, but the police pens. We dont see no riot here, why you
wearing riot gear! they screamed at the riot cops protecting and preserving the
shit out of them. Few at the rally could recall seeing so many at a CUNY budget
action.
After the NYPD displaced the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park on
November 15, many in labor suggested that participating in an evacuation of
activists was tantamount to crossing a picket line. The AFL CIO will do
everything in our power to make sure the free speech rights of these peaceful
protesters are protected, said American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations (AFLCIO) President Richard Trumka (quoted in Hall
2011). To the extent that OWS draws labor into this kind of solidarity work in
which a social movement supports striking workers, students ghting tuition
increases, and a larger movement ghting for public space this only supports a
multi-issue politics which benets both movements. Yet, there is no doubt this
is an uneasy alliance. While rank and le union organizers suggested OWS
occupations should be treated like picket lines, not to be crossed or dismantled,
it was the members of the New York Police Department (NYPD), union
members of the Patrolmans Benevolent Association, who dismantled the
encampments in Zuccotti Park and across the country. New York Mayor Mike
Bloomberg, an iconic and highly afuent businessman, later mused, the NYPD
were his army (Seifman 2011). Over time the police have become increasingly
hostile to the movement and their right to access public space.
Many in OWS have asked for solidarity with the NYPD as members of the
99 percent, public workers watching their pensions erode, just like other
workers. Yet, the NYPD often nds itself in an oppositional position with other
union members when it comes to social movements such as OWS or the Verizon
Strike, supported by other unions and OWS. Reacting to the assignment of
Police to the Verizon Strike, Police Benevolent Association (PBA) president Pat
Lynch noted:
131 COMMENTARY
What makes the job of being a police ofcer unique is that even though we
support and believe in the value of unionism and the ght for fairness by the
working person our professionalismallows us to stand between opposing sides to
protect both. Its one of the things that makes being a police ofcer a tough job.
Yet, there are encouraging signs of solidarity or support for the movement.
Police in Albany, NY were encouraged to arrest protesters pushing the Gover-
nor to extend the Millionaires tax for the 1 percent. Under pressure from the
Governor, the Mayor of Albany pushed for arrests. Yet, the police refused to
move in on what they saw as peaceful protesters, defying the order. The bottom
line is the police know policing, not the Mayor noted a police ofcial (quoted
in Lyons 2011).
The steps of engaging working people into the occupation movement are
many as are the obstacles. Yet, OWS is certainly making strides. OWS is
facilitating the development out of separate unions of a real labor movement,
argues Jackie DiSalvo. The OWS Labor Working Group brings together
people from 30 unions, and one of its main goals has become promotion of
mutual support among the unions themselves. If this takes hold, it might begin
to reverse labors long decline. On October 4, November 17, and December 1,
labor turned out tens of thousands, up to 32,000 on November 17. These are
numbers labor has not turned out on a regular basis in decades (Freeman 2000).
Consequently, the movement has beneted from the clear working policy
agenda formulated by the unions, such as SEIU.
They are smart in being very inclusive, noted PSC member and movement
historian Frances Fox Piven (2011), who noted OWS has reached out to many
groups including unions, When has a youthful protest done that in living
memory? It has been a long time, Piven answered her rhetorical question. But
they knew from the beginningprobably they were helped to learn that from
Wisconsin. And theyre so happily counter-cultural, you cant even get angry at
them if youre a stiff old person! Piven went on to note the movement has
beneted from its intelligent targetWall Streetas well as the lessons of Arab
Spring that taking space is an intelligent movement strategy. Many would come
to suggest this really was the US Fall.
Conclusion
Yet, questions remain: Can unions work in a collaborative, mutually respect-
ing fashion with social movements over the long term? And can OWS engage
working people? Labor historian Stanley Arronowitz wonders if OWS will
articulate, not a menu of specic programs or demands, but a path that effec-
tively indicates what a better life for the 99%, whom they wish to reach. And if
the movement aspires to a genuine, participatory democracy, can it make this
accessible for those who cannot attend long meetings? What does this mean for
people who support the movement but are tied down by long hours on the job
or caring for family members at home? If the Occupy movement wants jobs,
132 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY
what kind does it envision? asks Arronowitz (2011). And since sections of labor
have joined and endorsed the protests, what should the relationship be with
unions and other progressive organizations? And can labor support wild cat
strikes and other acts of direct action, such as the December 12 West Coast Port
Shut blockade, supported by both the movement and rank and le trade union-
ists? (LaborUnionReport 2011) Is this a movement or a moment? At this time,
no answer is forthcoming. Yet, Frances Fox-Piven suggests the movement would
be well advised to continue to work in common cause with unions, engaging
direct action, and reclaiming public space. They have to continue their work
with students and with the unions, and also look for the opportunity for new
kinds of occupationssit-ins, basically, notes Piven. The sit-in is, as you know,
a brilliant tactic. Its never been surpassed. Where else can we make our mark on
the physical plant that they have constructed on the earth? Actually, we did the
construction.
For now, many recognize the mutual benets of the link between labor and
an engaged mobilized social movement. Both movements have beneted from
mutual association, with labor nding new vitality in its connection with a
mobilized social movement. And OWS has been able to dismiss the charge that
this is a counterculture movement, by connecting itself with labor. Labor helped
mobilize a successful action in Wall Street on May 12, 2011, which anticipated
OWS. Still, challenges remain if labor is to maintain its uneasy alliance with this
anarchist inspired movement. Labor must learn to show solidity and respect not
only to the message of OWS but to the movements nonhierarchical organizing
process if the alliance to endure.
Benjamin Shepard is Assistant Professor of Human Service at New York
College of Technology/City University of New York. He is corresponding
editor to Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society. Shepard is author/editor
of six books, including White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the
San Francisco AIDS Epidemic (Cassell) and Queer Political Performance and Protest,
Play, Creativity, and Social Movements (Routledge), and The Beach beneath the
Streets (with Greg Smithsimon; SUNY Press). Address correspondence to
Dr. Benjamin H. Shepard, New York College of Technology/City University of
New York, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, U.S. Telephone: +001-718-
260-5135. Fax: +001-718-254-8530. E-mail: bshepard@citytech.cuny.edu
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