Important Fights Underscore This Year’s Labor Day Parade in NYC
Union Power: Michelle Keller, community outreach and organizing director for the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees, helps lead the way for members aboard the “Dorothy Day” float on 5th Ave. NYC municipal retirees are still urging the City Council to pass Intro. 1096—legislation vital to protecting the Traditional Medicare health insurance retirees earned on the job.
By Robert Hennelly
Over 100,000 union members from 200 unions and their supporters marched up Fifth Ave. on Sept. 6 in the annual New York City Central Labor Council Labor Day Parade that took on additional significance this year because it comes as the Trump regime is trying to strip away the collective bargaining rights of one million federal workers.
The draconian move, which AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, has called the "greatest union busting move in U.S. history" has had a collateral impact on workers in our region like Heather, a nurse who works at the James J. Peters Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx. She was marching with the New York State Nurses Association, an affiliate with NNU.
"This puts at risk of not being able to do our jobs to take care of the veterans that need our help and losing our collective bargaining rights is not fair to us—the hardworking workers who are at the bedside everyday for our veterans," Heather said.
Heather recalled that it was the nation's nurses unions that predicted that the COVID pandemic would take a tragic toll on their ranks and the American population because of the lack of sufficient basic supplies like N-95 masks and adequate staffing to guarantee infection control. In that first wave of COVID, the Guardian and Kaiser Health News reported 3,600 healthcare workers, including 800 in New York and New Jersey died as a consequence of their occupational exposure with two-thirds of them being people of color.
In the years since, healthcare unions like NYSNA and NNU have won safer staffing both through contract fights and in state as well as federal policy reforms. Now, they warn those gains are at serious risk and in the case of federal guidelines for congregant care in nursing homes have already been rolled back by the Trump administration.
The parade opened with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party's candidate for Mayor, Gov. Kathy Hochul (who has yet to endorse Mamdani), and New York State Attorney General Letitia James (who has endorsed him), all lined up behind the New York City Central Labor Council banner.
No Demolition! Residents of NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses march in this weekend’s Labor Day Parade to bring attention to their struggle against the privatization of public housing and plans to level their community. Community Board 4 recently voted no on the demolition plan—but local elected officials are still M.I.A.
Saturday's massive display of union power included bands, floats with musical acts as well as an array of heavy construction equipment and 18-wheeler rolling stock interspersed with antique cars and thundering motorcycles. It was a multi-generational affair interspersed with carefully choreographed cameos with elected leaders like U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer who dropped in with a NYSNA contingent long enough to get a photo and a video clip.
By contrast, New York Attorney General James, who was a parade favorite, stationed herself a few yards from the reviewing stand for much of the event and was summoned to join in by each union as they marched the last few blocks of the parade route.
"New York City is a union town—I believe in unions," James said. “I have seen the power of unions to grow the middle class. I have seen that individuals are enjoying more benefits and more rights and so I support the right to organize--always and forever."
Along the line of march was American Federation of Teachers President Randy Weingarten. The AFT represents 1.8 million members in more than 3,000 locals made up of educators, nurses and allied professionals.
"I am out here today because this is my home and the Labor Day Parade in New York City is the most remarkable one around the country," Weingarten said. "It's about the fight and struggle for what all workers deserve and what you see when you see the New York City Labor Day Parade is the breadth of the labor that it takes to run the city, the state and our country. These workers all deserve a fair shake in this country."
The AFT national leader took President Trump to task for "pretending to be a workers' advocate" while "taking away the right" for federal workers "to have power in their workplace--to have the power to collectively bargain which is a human right that everyone in America should have, not just billionaires. So, we are standing up for federal workers and for the people who are losing their Medicaid."
Marianne Pizzitola and other members of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees bravely withstood the downpour that struck marchers at this year’s Labor Day Parade.
Recently re-elected UFT President Michael Mulgrew noted that while union membership usually provides workers a 15- to 20-percent wage premium over non-union workers, "it gets more and more difficult" for everyone "to afford to live in this city."
Mulgrew continued, “and let's be clear, this is really a struggle in our country and our society. It is money, power and control versus decency and humanity and unions represent decency and humanity because in the end—those who have power can rationalize anything as if what they are doing is something nice (for workers) when they are really screwing people over and unions are the only impediment to that."
Henry Garrido, president of AFSCME's DC 37, which represents 150,000 New York City civil servants in everything from blue collar job titles to technical professions, warns that the Trump administration's attack on the federal civil service undermines the foundations of American democracy.
"That can lead to a lot of nepotism—that can lead to a lot of political appointments—you want people that are serving on the basis of merit and fitness," Garrido said. "You want the best services and the best people providing these services and that's what the civil service merit system provides."
Garrido observed that unions are usually targeted by authoritarians looking to consolidate power.
"Historically, without a doubt that during the time of facism unions were the first target—any organized labor has been in that situation and I think we have to be protective of the greater good in society," Garrido said, adding that unions were key to protecting scientists working in the public sector and serving the public interest. "We are seeing an attempt to dismantle democracy as we know it across the board by challenging the very thing that delivers for the people which is the government itself."
Along the parade route in front of Trump Tower dozens of anti-regime demonstrators had gathered to cheer on the unions.
The “Dorothy Day” float and its crew of New York City municipal retirees fighting for their Traditional Medicare health insurance benefits remain “ship-shape” during heavy rains at this year’s Labor Day Parade.
"I am absolutely bowled over by the beauty of all the organizing that's happening in the city and the unions we have seen," said James Leo. "We are standing in front of Trump Tower and seeing the unions stop and all saying really smart articulate things about how this regime is hurting their particular piece of the pie of New York."
Leo remained hopeful the upcoming Mayoral election would zero in on the city's deepening affordability crisis.
"It chokes me up of course because I know it's real people—we see it everyday. I see it in my neighborhood," Leo added. "I see it when we are at a rally like this. You see the urgency in the eyes of the people right now."
For the News Guild CWA contingent there was some great news to share.
Mike Davis, is the acting unit News Guild chair for the Gannett chain's New Jersey based Asbury Park Press bargaining unit.
"I am proud to say that we bargained for over three-and-a-half years and we finally got a contract that gave our members absolutely life changing raises with more than half our membership getting raises that were 20 percent or more—with a number of members virtually doubling their salaries overnight," Davis said.
The Asbury Park Press contract also includes improved job protections as well as improved layoff and severance language. "We also got some AI protections," he said.
Susan De Carava, president of the New York News Guild-CWA, put the Asbury Park Press victory in the broader context of the troubling trend of the accelerating corporate consolidation of the news media industry and the demise of authenticated local news reporting.
"There are ten billionaires that control the media—there are six major media companies and that media consolidation has completely hollowed out what used to be a robust and free local press," De Carava said. "And the less people know about what's going on in their own neighborhoods, in their own towns and their own cities, the more likely that bad things are happening and at some point people won't even know what they are missing so, they won't even ask for it and I don't want us to get to that point."
De Carava continued, "A free press is the only profession that's mentioned in our founding documents of this country and there is a reason why. It's because we need to have people asking the hard questions and shining the light on the dark corners where those in power don't want us to look and no AI is going to do that. That's something only a person is going to do because they care."
NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (l to r) were all smiles at this year’s Labor Day Parade up 5th Avenue.
Hours into the parade, fair skies turned to grey clouds with a drop of rain here and there giving way to a torrential downpour.
Marianne Pizzitola, retired FDNY EMT and president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees was riding on the Dorothy Day Staten Island Ferry boat float sponsored by the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots during the deluge. Pizzitola and her fellow float passengers didn't abandon their "ship" and just broke out their umbrellas.
It's been a big year for Pizzitola's group that fought and beat back a Bill de Blasio-era plan to force 250,000 retirees off of their Medicare and onto a predatory Medicare Advantage plan.
“Through the power of collective action we were able to fight the city attempting to force us off Medicare, pay premiums and copays we were told we would never have to pay," Pizzitola said. “That power still has us funding court battles while trying to navigate the political landscape to pass Intro. 1096 in the council while sharing our message on social media, rallies and community boards. It was fitting to march in the Labor Day parade in the pouring rain on the Dorothy Day Staten Island ferry- shows the resilience of labor and retiree ls to fight for justice.”
Residents fighting back against the New York City Housing Authority’s plan to demolish the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in the name of “redevelopment” also marched in this year’s Labor Day Parade with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 808—the union representing building service and Metro North workers in New York.