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Union reaction

Various unions, including the Transport Workers Union of America Local 100 and the New York Metro 32BJ Service Employees International Union have pledged their support for demonstrators. The Industrial Workers of the World announced on September 28, 2011, that its General Executive Board (GEB), and the General Defense Committee (GDC) had issued statements of support for Occupy Wall Street. On October 3, Transport Workers Union bus drivers sued the New York Police Department for ordering their buses to drive to the Brooklyn Bridge to pick up detained protesters. Union President John Samuelsen said, "We're down with these protesters. We support the notion that rich folk are not paying their fair share. Our bus operators are not going to be pressed into service to arrest protesters anywhere."  On October 5, representatives from more than 14 of the country's largest labor unions intended to join the protesters for a mass rally and march.

Noting the growing union support, an article in the liberal Mother Jones magazine said that union support could splinter and derail the protests rather than sustain them because while unions are tightly organized, hierarchical, and run with a clear chain of command, Occupy Wall Street is the opposite in that they are "a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought". However, the article went on to suggest that joined together they could work to create a progressive movement that "effectively taps into the rising feeling among many Americans that economic opportunity has been squashed by corporate greed and the influence of the very rich in politics".

Business leaders

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, stated in an interview with Charlie Rose, "I think the number one problem is that we're not having a quality dialogue...I certainly understand the frustration, I understand the dilemma, I understand the discontent."  Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric and a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, stated "It is natural to assume that people are angry, and I think we have to be empathetic and understand that people are not feeling great."

Vikram Pandit, head of Citigroup, called the protesters' sentiments "completely understandable" and that Wall Street had broken the trust of its clients.

Bill Gross, manager of PIMCO's Total Return Fund, the world's largest mutual fund, stated "Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they're fighting back after 30 years of being shot at." PIMCO's co-CEO Mohamed El-Erian argued that people should "listen to Occupy Wall Street John Paulson, founder of the hedge fund Paulson & Co., criticized the protesters for "vilifying our most successful businesses", citing that "The top 1% of New Yorkers pay over 40% of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state."

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