courtesy of OWS Arts and Labor
The Occupy Labor Alliance is comprised of several working groups established within OWS focusing on workers’ rights. Groups making up the Alliance include 99 Pickets, Immigrant Worker Justice, OWS Arts & Labor, the Labor Outreach Committee and Organize Your Workplace. Since OWS was evicted from Zuccotti Park, the Alliance has organized numerous direct actions aimed at supporting and empowering workers in their fights to unionize, and calling attention to immigrant workers’ issues.
OWS Arts & Labor has been active in the last year in supporting workers in the art world. In January the group stood in solidarity with Teamsters Local 814, the professional art handlers union at Sotheby’s which had been locked out for several months. In February, Art & Labor called on the Whitney Museum to end the Whitney Biennial in 2014, citing the rise of the speculative art market and the need for artists to obtain advanced degrees to participate in the current art exhibition system.
