By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — After snarling Friday rush hour traffic in downtown Providence with a “Unity March” from the Westin Hotel to the Statehouse, a coalition of labor and community groups held a rally in support of state workers, immigrants and union labor.

As the procession moved past the Providence Place Mall and up the sprawling Statehouse lawn, the marchers, some carrying picket signs, other carrying umbrellas against the cold drizzle, chanted, “We’re fired up, and we can’t take it no more.”
The march and rally were intended as a show of strength by various unions at a time when state employees are being targeted for cuts and asked for givebacks in their benefits, while state officials struggle to plug holes in the state budget this year and next that are gushing red ink.
“You can not have a democracy without a fighting, independent, viable trade union movement,” said AFL-CIO secretary/treasurer George Nee, warming up the crowd of several hundred, many of whom were visitors in Providence for the Jobs with Justice national conference, which is being held this weekend at the Westin.
“We are here to give a clear message to politicians at the national, state and local level, that we will not tolerate being divided and we will not tolerate all the cheap shots being taken,” Nee said. “We are not going to let workers be divided by public sector or private sector, by gender, by sexual orientation, by ethnic group. We are all workers and we work for a living and we make this country great.”
Sarita Gupta, executive director of the national Jobs with Justice organization,  described Rhode Island as “a small state that has a huge fight ahead of it. Rhode Island is a part of a national movement that knows the value of unity over division.”
Saying the group seeks access to “basic needs,” such as health care, education and housing, Gupta declared, “We’re not demanding something outrageous here. We are not the greedy ones. We are demanding basic human rights.”
Many of the group’s messages were directed toward the state’s governor, who has become both the bogeyman and the whipping boy for labor interests, particularly those of state workers.
To bring state spending under control, Gov. Donald Carcieri has endeavored to slash state employee jobs, health care, retiree health care and pensions.
“We’re here to tell Gov. Carcieri it’s time to support workers … it’s time to show some respect for workers,” said Paul Booth, national organizing director for AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees).
“This governor of yours … is proposing to push more people out of the middle class. He wants to eliminate jobs, laying off state workers. He wants to force state workers to take a cut in their benefits. He’s privatizing jobs, shipping them out to his friends in the private sector.
“We defy him,” Booth declared to the cheers and whoops of the crowd.
The rally prompted a heavy law enforcement presence, with numerous State Police supplementing Capitol Police in keeping an eye on the protest. Police wearing bright orange raincoats lined up on the Statehouse steps just behind the stage where the speaking program took place. There was a large gray Sheriff’s Department school bus, the kind used for transporting prisoners, standing by in a nearby parking lot.
“We need politicians with some guts,” Booth said. “The guts to go to people in the top income brackets, who benefit from the flat tax that is costing the state millions in revenue, and are not afraid to make them pay their fair share. And if the (politicians) we have won’t do that, we’ll get us some new ones. We have what it takes to tell Carcieri and all the others that we won’t give in and we won’t give up.”
Roxanne Rivera of SEIU Local 615 said that when Carcieri issued his recent executive order clamping down on illegal immigration in the state, “he did attack immigrant workers. We need to stop putting the blame for the economic problems in the state on the working people of this state. The American dream must include everyone.”
Calling the notion that labor unions are anti-immigrant “pure bull----,” Scott Duhamel of the State Building Trades Council said, “We were built on the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants.”
National Education Association executive director Robert Walsh attacked the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce for wanting to take money out of workers’ pockets “so the richest people in this state can keep their tax breaks in tough economic times.
“How many workers have to take a furlough day so the top corporate CEOs can keep their yachts gassed up? It makes no sense.”
Calls to the governor’s office seeking comment were not returned late Friday afternoon.