MANHATTAN — Occupy Wall Street, the group of demonstrators that has stationed itself in a Lower Manhattan park for nearly two weeks, got a vote of support from one of the city’s most influential unions Wednesday.
The executive board for the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which boasts roughly 38,000 bus and subway workers plus an additional 26,000 retirees, voted Wednesday night to support the demonstrators, who have been camped out at Zuccotti Park, near the World Trade Center, since Sept. 17, according to spokesman Jim Gannon.
Gannon said the union would invite its members to join the Occupy Wall Street crowd for a march and rally at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 5. The Working Families Party is also expected to participate in the Oct. 5 action, according to spokesman T.J. Helmstetter.
The TWU vote seemed to represent a growing sense of mainstream legitimacy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, who have been criticized as lacking organization and political focus.
Celebrity activists Susan Sarandon, Cornel West and Michael Moore haven also given a boost to the demonstrators, who say they are there to protest corporate greed, among other things, by joining them in Zuccotti Park.
