On September 1, 1942, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia issued a press release appealing to New Yorkers to “avail themselves of existing recreational facilities in New York City over the Labor Day weekend.” He explained that the upcoming holiday “will be our first war-time Labor Day. Because of war conditions, transportation is difficult for everyone.” LaGuardia continued, “I, therefore, am taking this opportunity to remind all residents … that New York City offers the greatest recreational facilities to be found anywhere in the world.”
NYPD Surveillance of Organized Labor
The Municipal Archives’ digital gallery hosts a collection of more than 1,400 surveillance films created by the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s photography unit at the request of the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations. Dating between 1960 and 1980 they total more than70 hours of visually fascinating footage of one of the most tumultuous eras in American history. Among the highlights in the collection are footage of the first Earth Day march in 1970, a Nation of Islam rally, Young Lords building occupations, early protests by gay-rights advocates, and the massive anti-war marches and demonstrations after the Kent State shootings in May 1970.
Previous blogs have highlighted footage of the San Juan Fiesta in 1979, occupation of Sydenham Hospital in 1980, and protests during construction of Rochdale Village in 1963. This week the blog shines a light on the NYPD’s surveillance of organized labor demonstrations and strikes. Beginning in the 1920s, the NYPD targeted unions, socialists and communists, earning their surveillance wing the nickname ‘The Red Squad.’
During the 1950s and 60s, leaders of the Civil Rights Movement often used strikes to push for equal employment opportunities for people of all ethnicities. Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers were routinely denied jobs available only to their white counterparts and unions found little success in negotiating fair treatment. Indeed, large umbrella labor organizations like the AFL-CIO remained split for decades on whether to become more racially inclusive. This 1963 NYPD surveillance film shows striking workers and their supporters protesting the use of all-white construction unions to build the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. When the demonstrators used civil disobedience tactics like obstructing traffic, NYPD officers quickly arrested them.
In 1969, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), backed by the AFL-CIO, went on their first national strike since 1947. AT&T had refused their demands for a cost of living adjustment as well as payments to cover health care premiums. Bad weather didn’t stop hundreds from picketing in downtown Manhattan for days on end, drawing on laborers from all parts of the City. The rain also didn’t stop a robust NYPD response. Just like with the Downstate Hospital construction site, the NYPD arrested scores of strikers. Unlike the Downstate strikers whose demands were not met, the CWA workers were successful. After 12 days, AT&T met their demands in full.
Transport Workers Union of America, N.D. The earliest NYPD surveillance film documents a TWU strike from the early 1960s. NYPD film collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
On his first day in office, January 1, 1966, Mayor Lindsay was confronted with a transit strike, one of the most consequential labor actions in City history. In 1958, Mayor Wagner gave public employees the right to collective bargaining. Wagner formed a close working relationship with Michael J. Quill, head of the Transport Workers Union, and together they avoided any significant stoppages in public transportation during his three terms in office (1954-1965). However, as a mayoral candidate in the 1965 election, John Lindsay campaigned against such arrangements, accusing the City and the unions of corruption.
The twelve-day1966 Transit Strike spurred creation of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, more commonly known as the Taylor Law. The new Law introduced a framework for public employee unions to negotiate their demands with the City, imposing harsh penalties if they went on strike. The most recent City transit strike in 2005 resulted in fines to the Transport Workers Union of $1 million for every day of the strike. Laws like the Taylor Law exist in most states, severely curtailing the ability of public employees to strike for wage hikes and improved working conditions.
The NYPD was not above conducting surveillance on their own union, then called the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, now the Police Benevolent Association. In 1968 and 1976, the PBA demonstrated for higher wages and better hours. Along with signs making their demands clear, the demonstrators added effigies of Mayor Lindsay and coffins symbolizing fallen police officers and the dangerous working conditions that NYPD officers faced. In 1971, the NYPD engaged in a mass work stoppage involving 20,000 officers calling in sick when their request for a wage increase was denied. But why call in sick instead of striking? The answer is the Taylor Law. As described above, the law prevented police officers, like all public employees, from going on strike. And if they did take this action, they would face heavy fines and jail time.
The Municipal Archives transferred the surveillance films from the NYPD photography unit in 2015 as part of a larger collection of photographic materials including glass, nitrate, acetate and polyester-base negatives and silver-gelatin prints. Many of these images are also available in the digital gallery
Digitization of the NYPD films was supported by a grant from the New York State Archives’ Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund. The films were scanned to create digital video files in .mov and .mp4 formats for master and access versions, respectively. Future blogs will highlight newly digitized footage from the Archives’ moving image collection that will be added to the digital gallery beginning in October.
The 1968 Labor Day Parade
The NYPD Surveillance Film collection has it all—environmental activists, antiwar protestors, elected officials, Black Panthers. There is even a film documenting a Labor Day parade complete with burlesque performers, horses and political candidates.
Labor Day is a national holiday because at one point, our national leaders believed that honoring working people was the right thing to do, as well as smart politics. Labor unions were a force to be reckoned with. After peaking at 35% in 1954, union membership in the United States has declined to 10.8% in 2020, according to the latest estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In New York City, union membership has held at about 22%, partly thanks to Mayor Wagner’s 1958 Executive Order No. 49, which gave many municipal employees the right to collective bargaining. Likewise, participation in New York City’s annual Labor Day parade has waxed and waned in concert with the level of union employment.
Recently digitized film footage of the 1968 Labor Day parade in the Municipal Archives collection vividly illustrates this history. On September 3, 1968, the New York Times reported that 125,000 marchers participated “….in a long and spirited Labor Day parade up Fifth Avenue.” With the presidential election that year just two months off, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey took the opportunity to connect with voters along the parade route. The Times article added that President Richard Nixon spent the day working in his apartment at 812 Fifth Avenue, “… within earshot of the day long marching brass, fife and drum corps and bagpipes.”
The parade occurred just days after the conclusion of the bloody 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Some New Yorkers were not happy that the “Happy Warrior” presidential candidate was walking in their midst. Like true New Yorkers, they made their opinions known.
Take a moment or two this Labor Day holiday weekend to view footage of the 1968 Labor Day Parade in the Archives collection gallery .