Anti-GOP demonstration in convention hall

NEW YORK, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Protesters against the Republican National Convention midday Wednesday staged a demonstration on the floor of Madison Square Garden hours before the actual conclave got underway.

Twelve of the demonstrators were arrested on disorderly conduct charges and one of them additionally was charged with assault, said Police Officer Doris Garcia, a spokeswoman. A total of 20 people were arrested during the day.

There were no reports of injuries during the day of demonstrations.

A delegate was reported to have been punched during the youth meeting demonstration, but a Fire Department spokesman said he refused medical attention.

The demonstrators entered with a group of young Republicans attending a meeting of youth before the actual RNC got underway in the evening. They apparently had legitimate credentials to enter through tight security.

One woman claiming to be a demonstrator who escaped arrest later told CNN she received the accreditation from an acquaintance who did not want to return to the hall.

As White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was speaking, some of the demonstrators stripped of shirts to reveal slogan-emblazoned T-shirts and others produced bumper stickers and other signs. One spotted by reporters said "Stop AIDS, Stop Death."

The demonstrators were quickly shuffled off the convention floor and Card did not interrupt his address.

Police said shortly after the evening session of the convention ended there had been eight arrests of protesters at various, unspecified locations, in addition to the Garden arrests. Police were even tracking groups of people, especially potential protesters, during the convention session, fearing they would try to disrupt delegates leaving the Garden.

The arrest figure Wednesday paled in comparison to the more than 1,000 taken into custody from the steps of the New York City Public Library, to the vicinity of the convention site in Midtown, to Union and Madison Square parks and the Financial District, downtown.

A major, late afternoon, "Stop Bush Labor Rally" was staged only two blocks from the Garden Wednesday in the designated protest zone on Eighth Avenue, stretching between 30th and 23rd streets, sponsored by the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO.

Speakers included AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, NYCCLC president Brian McLaughlin, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees President Bruce Raynor, and Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers and head of the Municipal Labor Committee.

Also on hand were Actor Danny Glover and "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini.

McLaughlin, one of the rally's organizers, said last week that although the city's labor unions played a pivotal role in bringing the Republican convention to the city, "We want the convention to be a smooth convention, (but) we are going to be very, very focused on our message. We are not protesting the RNC. We are protesting the policies of George W. Bush."

RNC officials said the city was chosen in part because of a "no-strike" agreement to which the unions committed last year.

The crowd was unofficially estimated at perhaps as many as 50,000 people.

Daniel Goode, 68, of Manhattan, a former member of the American Association of University Professors union at Rutgers University but who describes himself as a composer-musician, "full time," held a green pole-mounted placard reading "Take Back the Future."

He explained the sign represented a group his wife, Anne Snitow, started in autumn 2002 to discuss strategy, ultimately unsuccessful, to keep the United States out of the war in Iraq.

"There has always been a labor connection in my background somehow or another and the politics of it so I'm a person of the left, pretty far left," the gray-haired and bespectacled Goode said. "I'm just getting along with what we are trying to do now to oppose (President George W.) Bush ... the biggest disaster, I think, of my waking years."

Standing just a few yards away but with several dozen people in between was Thomas Schechter, 52, of the Bronx, a city social-services supervisor wearing a District Council 37 municipal-workers union T-shirt and carrying a "Where are our Jobs?" sign.

"I am here because of the needs for more benefits for our workers because we don't have enough staff, we can't keep staff because our work is so dirty and so filthy and because our benefits are so poor nobody wants to work in our type of office."

Standing by herself off to the side near the metal police barricades over which some police officers were leaning was Elizabeth Griswold, 26, of Los Angeles, a case worker with domestic-violence victims.

"I want to support the labor unions today, although I am not in a union myself," she said. "I think that, especially this week, it is important to know what Bush has been doing since he has been in office. There's been a net loss of about a million jobs and in terms of healthcare and education and a lot of things the unions are talking about."

First thing in the morning, more than 7,500 people participated in a mock unemployment line, waiving bright pink slips to represent the United States' 8 million unemployed workers. The "unemployment line" began officially at 8:15 a.m. and was just one among the day's more dramatic labor-themed actions, rallies or demonstrations, just days before the Labor Day holiday.

Facing north and standing in single-file along the West side of Broadway, participants spanned 60 Manhattan blocks with 30 to 50 people per block, running from Wall Street to just south of the Garden.

Organizers staged the single-line format so as not to block pedestrians, saying they didn't need to obtain a permit from the city.

Participants in the protest included two dozen groups, ranging from the New York state chapter of the AFL-CIO, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform No and Citizen Action-NY, although People for the American Way-NY and Imagine '04, which coordinated the outreach and logistics, were the chief sponsors, according to the PFAW-NY.

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(With additional reporting by Jillian Jonas, UPI National Political Analyst)

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