ABSTRACT
On Wednesday, June 4, 1975, at the nadir of the New York fiscal crisis, Mayor Abe Beame announced a radical plan to regain the city’s financial footing and appease its creditors. In the name of austerity, he would terminate the contracts of some 50,000 city workers, the single largest lay-off in New York City history, by July 1. By all accounts, this would deal a major blow to the city’s powerful municipal unions and to their ability to provide public services city-wide. Many unions immediately began strategizing how to fight the lay-offs, including the city’s twenty-four police and fire unions and their newly formed coalition, the Committee for Public Safety (CPS). With an anger they believed reflected that of their 80,000 members and the city as a whole, the CPS proposed one of the most controversial tactics ever employed by organized labor in New York: the “Welcome to Fear City” media campaign.
