After serving food with a smile to Republican delegates all week at the Westin New York at Times Square hotel, waiter Mohammed Uddin couldn't wait to let them know how he really felt.

So after his shift ended yesterday afternoon, Uddin, who came to America from Bangladesh more than 20 years ago, headed with some of his co-workers over to Local 6 of the hotel workers union to make signs for the big anti-Bush labor rally.

"You only need to look at the price of milk and food," Uddin said. "Everything's going up. Before Bush became President, I pay $2.35 a gallon. Now the same gallon of milk is $4.25."

Uddin and his wife have a young daughter, so milk is no small matter. He figures he's paying an extra $6 a week just for that. That's $300 a year.

"I got $300 from Bush in a tax cut and paid it back for milk. And everything else is has gone up, too. It's hard to survive now, even when you're working."

Neither McCain nor Giuliani nor Schwarzenegger nor Cheney - not even Laura or Jenna or any of the Bush women - have bothered to mention the price of milk at this convention.

Why would they bother with such mundane matters when they are so busy keeping us safe from terrorism and terrorism and terrorism, and, did I mention, terrorism?

Can we ever forget the look of utter amazement on Bush, the father, the first time he found himself facing an electronic scanner at a supermarket counter 12 years ago?

These "little" things that the rest of us confront seem so unimportant to Republicans. Like the changes on overtime rules that President Bush instituted last month.

The AFL-CIO estimates 6 million workers in this country will lose the right to overtime as a result of the changes.

"It was the biggest pay cut in history for American workers," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said yesterday.

Just a minor rules change for Bush.

"Everything workers have achieved in decades is up for grabs with this administration," Dennis Hughes, head of the state federation of labor, said before the start of yesterday's labor rally near Madison Square Garden.

More than 4 million people have dropped into poverty since Bush became President. We have 45 million people without health insurance, the largest number ever. Pensions are disappearing at many big companies.

No wonder that workers turned out by the thousands yesterday in a rally that packed more than seven blocks along Seventh Ave., from 23rd to 30th Sts.

There were huge contingents of ironworkers and electricians, teachers, fire officers and teamsters, hospital, transit and garment workers.

Organized labor has never been so united as it is this year against Bush.

"This is certainly the most important election in my lifetime," Sweeney said.

"Sopranos" star James Gandolfini sparked wild cheers when he told the crowd, "I can't tell you how mad I am that these people [the Republicans] are in my city."

Gandolfini was expressing what many union members in this town already feel: that the Republicans had some nerve to come into New York City, the heart and soul of America's organized labor movement, to nominate one of the most anti-labor Presidents in history.

Those delegates who did not hear the message from yesterday's rally no doubt went back to their hotels last night and hardly noticed the smiling waiters who served them.

Juan Gonzalez is a Daily News columnist. Email: jgonzalez@edit.nydailynews.com

© 2004 Daily News, L.P.

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