A Union-Spirited Labor Day Rap

By ANDY NEWMAN

Just in time for Labor Day, the Cablevision workers in Brooklyn who voted this year to unionize have released a rap video chronicling their struggle.

The song, “We Are the Union,” features two Cablevision technicians, McDaniel Paul and Jerome Thompson Jr., and a former customer-service agent, Shatoya Thomas-Flemmings.

“I'll be a pain in the colon / For your boy Jimmy Dolan,” Mr. Thompson declares, referring to Cablevision's chief executive. “His pockets are swollen / Reaping what my labor's sowing.”

In voting to join the Communications Workers of America Local 1109 in January, the Brooklyn workers became the first of Cablevision's cable television employees to unionize, in what remains a largely union-free industry.

Asked to comment on the video, a Cablevision spokesman, Jim Maiella, noted that a subsequent unionization effort, in the Bronx in June, failed. “Cabl evision Bronx technicians voted overwhelmingly, by a three-to-one margin, to maintain a direct relationship with the company and reject the C.W.A. union's misinformation and false promises,” Mr. Maiella said in a statement.

He sent along a link to a counter-music-video, in which workers jeeringly sang “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” to union reps as they left a Cablevision building in the Bronx.

Happy long weekend, everyone.