Thousands love a parade for union cause
THOUSANDS OF banner-waving union members marched up Fifth Ave. on Saturday in the city’s annual Labor Day Parade.
The colorful event featured New Yorkers from a wide array of backgrounds and industries, from construction workers and firefighters to Broadway performers, costume designers, teachers and many more.
Grand Marshal Edgar Romney, secretary-treasurer of Workers United Service Employees International Union, led the massive display of floats, bands, classic cars and big machinery along the Fifth Ave. that took marchers directly past President Trump’s Midtown home.
Romney was accompanied by parade Chairman James Claffey, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 1.
Politicians and local leaders also participated.
Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio marched alongside labor leader Vincent Alvarez, head of the New York City Central Labor Council, which organizes the parade each year.
Cuomo called the event “more poignant today than it is normally is.”
“Labor Day is about celebrating the working men and women in the United States,” he said. “It’s the solid middle class, which runs this state.”
A show of union pride is “appropriate because the middle class is the class that is feeling the pain in society,” Cuomo added. “The richest people in this country have done very well. The middle class is going backwards.”
Without mentioning the President by name, Cuomo knocked Washington for ignoring the needs of workers who make up the rank and file of the labor unions.
“This is a federal government that reached out to the middle class during the campaign and connected with the anger of the middle class but is doing absolutely nothing for them,” he said.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and city Controller Scott Stringer also made appearances at the festivities.
Bagpipes echoed along the avenue as marchers sang “Solidarity Forever” and chanted, “the workers united will never be divided.”
Colorful floats rode past, some deriding the upcoming vote on whether or not to hold a state constitutional convention.
Many fear a convention could open the door to dismantling workers’ rights and collective bargaining.
“It’s really important in this day and age that we’re out there with one loud, unified voice,” Alvarez said. “And we’re doing that today.”
The show of labor strength first began on Sept. 5, 1882, and in 1894, Congress officially legalized the first Monday of September as a national holiday to honor the contributions of labor.
With the exception of certain years when world events got in the way, such as the imminent arrival of World War II, New York’s unions have used the parade to put on a spectacular display.
Plumbers Local 1 on Saturday brought a truck with a larger-than-life spigot on the back that gushed water.
The trade and construction unions piloted backhoes, dump trucks and other heavy machinery along Fifth Ave.
The United Federation of Teachers wowed with a lively float, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 — currently in a bitter strike with Spectrum over pensions and benefits for 1,800 members — had a contingent that stretched for blocks.