Unions come out in full force to support march
A Valley-long march against state budget cuts wound its way north on M Street in Merced on Wednesday afternoon.
It was clear the group was made up of mostly union members. United Farm Worker flags, T-shirts emblazoned with union symbols and laborers' chants were all reminders of the strong union presence.
While the March for California's Future was led and organized by teachers and focused on the cuts in funding for education, some of the marchers and their supporters are union members who work outside the education field.
Edward Huddleston Jr., chair of the UDW chapter of Merced County, high-fives marchers as they arrive at the March for California's Future rally at the Sierra Presbyterian Church." rel="story-images" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(38, 82, 128); text-decoration: none; ">
Merced Sun-Star - PHOTO BY BEA AHBECK
Edward Huddleston Jr., chair of the UDW chapter of Merced County, high-fives marchers as they arrive at the March for California's Future rally at the Sierra Presbyterian Church.
The march from Bakersfield to Sacramento follows the trail Cesar Chavez took in 1965 to support grape pickers.
The march's main goal has been to focus attention on the cuts to education and social services, but it has also acted as a bond for union cooperation statewide. Many of the unions involved see the state budget cuts as more than cost-cutting measures. Instead, they see them as an attack on the well-being of Californians at the expense of the middle class, said union spokespeople and marchers.
In Merced, the union support for the march came from the Merced-Mariposa Central Labor Council, which hosted the march. "Labor as a whole, which is what the Central Labor Council speaks for, is involved in this march because labor and working people are the chief casualties of the state's budget cuts," said Doug Fleming, spokesman for the council.
Ysmael Rocha, a member of the Merced chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that kind of march brings unions together for a common cause. "Hopefully, this will let us see that we have commonalities," he said. State budget cuts have hurt more than teachers, said Rocha. At the Human Services Agency, where he works, there are fewer people working more caseloads because of state cuts.
Steve Smith of the California Labor Federation said the state's draconian budget cuts have
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