Workers of the city, unite — and zombies, too!
The wacky Occupy Wall Street protest got a boost from big labor yesterday when the city’s transit union angrily asked a judge to prevent cops from forcing MTA buses to ferry busted demonstrators.
The move came as the protest’s loopy lefties showed no signs of giving up their chaotic rallies targeting “Wall Street greed,’’ with a rowdy crowd of 300-plus jamming Zuccotti Park near the Financial District — including a ghoulish handful made up as money-eating “corporate zombies.”
“The zombie is a metaphor and symbol of corporate greed,” said Manhattan artist Mercury Cloud, 36, as he painted people’s faces on the 17th day of the protest.
“Let’s just do our best to embody zombie-ism … get into the whole ‘Uggghhh, moneeeey!’ thing, you know?”
Cops made five arrests at the park — including a pair of zombies — late in the afternoon, but the day was mostly peaceful.
“If it is a lawful demonstration, we help facilitate, and if they break the law, we arrest them,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, whose department has come under fire for pepper-spraying female protesters marching behind a barricade and busting more than 700 people for blocking traffic Saturday on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Earlier, the Transport Workers Union had gone to federal court in Manhattan to ask a judge to bar the city from ordering MTA buses to haul off those arrested.
Cops had commandeered five MTA buses Saturday to take the massive crowd of busted demonstrators to court.
“This was a peaceful protest until the police came along,” fumed TWU chief John Samuelsen, adding that cops can commandeer bus drivers in case of emergency but that Saturday’s events didn’t come close.
“This is not 9/11. There was no state of emergency whatsoever. They have no right to press our bus operators into performing emergency services,” he said. “We’re down with these protesters!”
The Wall Street protesters returned the favor to the sympathetic unions yesterday by joining a rally supporting locked-out art handlers at Sotheby’s on the Upper East Side.
They also planned to gather at City Hall today to support unionized city workers protesting layoffs.
Some hardhats from the World Trade Center construction site joined the growing protest on their lunch breaks.
“If you look at it, this is becoming larger than life. Unions should support the people. Unions were built on the people,” said ironworker Yves Hyppolite, 42, of Long Island.