Politics dominate summer’s last hurrah on Labor Day

Labor Day is a holiday to honor the American worker, but it also has a political bent too.

Across the country gatherings and parades invite politicians to march and speak on the day that also marks a final hurrah for summer.

Here’s a look at how the United States celebrated its Labor Day.

The most interesting Labor Day political appearance was in Ohio, where tabloid TV star Jerry Springer was at a parade in Cleveland.

There was no crazy love triangle or confrontation that made Springer famous on syndication. Instead, the 73-year-old had low-key conversations, calling for workers to join unions so they can get back a bigger piece of the pie from their bosses.

“We have to fight back! Working-class America is under attack. Keep up the fight,” Springer said at a Monday morning rally.

Springer has not officially announced a run for Ohio governor in 2018. Before he became a TV star, he bounced back from a prostitution scandal in the 1970s to win election to a term as Cincinnati mayor and failed in a run for governor in 1982.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders made several speeches in the Northeast on Monday, saying Donald Trump’s presidency is accelerating a trend to make America a country for the rich and not for everyone.

Sanders on Monday deviated from a typical Labor Day message, using “ugly” and “cruel” to describe Trump’s reported decision to end a program that grants temporary legal status to people who were brought to the United States illegally as children

Sanders told the union members he spoke to at the New Hampshire AFLCIO in Manchester that they needed to stand together to fight for immigrants, just like they need to keep fighting for government-run health care for all Americans and other policy changes he said would stop the economic backsliding for the middle class.