Occupiers join Teamsters in slamming Sotheby’s lockout

Tony auction house Sotheby’s had the most profitable year in its history this year, paying its top executives record bonuses. It also locked out 43 art handlers in August for refusing to accept wage and benefit cuts and the dissolution of their union as a condition of employment.

The art handlers and their union, Teamsters Local 814, were soon joined by Occupy Wall Street activists noisily picketing company offices during auctions, insinuating themselves into the bidding process and pressuring board members to intervene, including employing “truth squads” inside and outside the restaurants owned by Danny Meyer, a Sotheby’s director.

Another trustee hearing from activists was Diana Taylor, an investment banker and Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend. Asked to help end the lockout as she chaired a meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust, Taylor replied sternly that she told Sotheby’s president and chief executive, William F. Ruprecht, that she would resign from the board “if he accedes to any of your demands.”

After the incident, Teamster President James Hoffa Jr. asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo to remove Taylor from the trust’s board.

“She may represent the views of 1 percent of New York’s wealthiest, but she doesn’t represent the 99 percent whose interests she is entrusted to represent as chair of the Hudson River Park Trust,” Hoffa said. “Someone who is so hostile to the well-being of New York’s working families shouldn’t be overseeing a public project intended to improve their lives.”

Huffington Post, Dec. 6.
PR Newswire, Dec. 6.