The Associated Press Sunday, October 17, 2004; 4:28 PM
Hundreds of workers gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday to demand health care, better wages, guaranteed Social Security benefits and an end to the war in Iraq.
Many of the longshoremen, transit workers, carpenters, mail carriers carried signs saying "Bush lied, thousands died," "More money for jobs, not war" and others. In the decidedly anti-President Bush atmosphere, some wore T-shirts and badges advocating the election of Democrat John Kerry or Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader.
Organizers had billed the gathering as the "Million Worker March" and had obtained a permit for a gathering of more than 100,000
on the National Mall. The turnout was much smaller, but U.S. Park
Police has not made official crowd estimates since a furor arose in 1995 over its estimate of 400,000 at the "Million Man March" sponsored by the Nation of Islam.
Standing on the Lincoln Memorial steps where his father delivered his "I have a dream" speech in 1963, Martin Luther King III told the crowd that civil rights, workers and anti-war activists must come together in common cause.
"Our most important step that we can take is the short step to the ballot box," King said. "We must vote like we never have before."
Robert Ortiz, 45, a safety and health representative for Local
100 of the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York, said he plans to vote for Kerry, but the Democrats take labor for granted. "Republicans are an overt enemy of labor," he said "but Democrats are not as active as they could be."
Organizers claimed endorsements from unions representing 3.5 million workers, including chapters of the Communications Workers of America, United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
-- Michael Pugliese