Public Employee Press

Union members featured in Sandy photo exhibit

Photos by PEP Photographer Clarence Elie-Rivera were among the works featured in a photo exhibit about how union workers helped rebuild New York City neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

The traveling exhibit, "Sandy Stories: Organized Labor Rebuilds New York," opened June 6 at the Labor & Working Class History Association's three-day bi-annual national conference, which was held at CUNY's Center for Worker Education.

Fifty framed photos from the exhibit were displayed throughout the hallways, as a videotaped slide show of the exhibit looped around on TV sets.

On Oct. 29, as superstorm Sandy hit the metropolitan area, winds and water downed power lines, flooded streets and home, and brought devastation to all five boroughs of New York City.

Thousands of public and private sector union members helped the city rebuild. While workers helped others and labored long hours, many of their own families dealt with the storm's damage. The
exhibit, sponsored by the New York State AFL-CIO and The Workforce Development Institute, documents the rebuilding with photos provided by the workers and their unions.

DC 37 was one of many unions to contribute photos to the exhibit. PEP photographer Clarence Elie-Rivera's photo of Emergency Medical Technician Todd Bilgore, Local 2506, providing the image for the exhibit poster. Other photos submitted by Elie-Rivera include Local 1455 member Ernst Fink replacing signs in Far Rockaway and Harold Probanski, Local 1931, rebuilding his home on Staten Island. Another photo depicts Local 372 member Joan Cannon standing in the gutted interior of her home.

The exhibit will be traveling to union halls and state labor federations, and efforts are underway to collect workers' stories in print. The Workforce Development Institute is creating a catalogue with captions, an archive of the materials to preserve the documentation, and a slide show. A link to the photos can be found at www.facebook.com/wdiny.

—Jane LaTour