Letters to the Editor
Labor Can't Give Up Parade

To the Editor:

If the labor movement wants to step into the 21st Century, canceling the annual workers' Labor Day Parade in New York City is not the way to do it.

We often say proudly that New York City is a labor town - and that underlines our responsibility to showcase labor strength in public events. Labor must continually organize and educate, and we can ill afford to give up the one day when the mass media is prepared to at least acknowledge our existence.

Many union leaders aspire to satisfy only the narrow needs of their members, and if they can do this with little challenge to the employer, so much the better. They preach the gospel of low expectations to their members, while they save their real energy for infighting within the union organization so that they can stay in power and receive fat stipends. They collaborate with management in using the fear of unemployment as a not-so-subtle means of guaranteeing contract approval.

If the City of New York had moved to ban the parade, many of these same labor leaders would have been vociferous in their anger. But the decision of the Central Labor Council goes cynically unremarked.

The workers' Labor Day Parade can be New York's most important platform for organizing and education, and to demonstrate labor strength to politicians in order to win their respect, to resist the anti-labor policies of the Bush administration and of the Supreme Court, and to take a strong anti-war stand.

If turnout at the parade is poor, we must strive to do better. On the bottom floor of my own workplace at 253 Broadway, there is a branch of JP Morgan Chase Bank. Some of the tellers at this branch would like to unionize. This may seem like a hopeless fight, but by giving up the parade, we show the public at large that their hopes for one day being union members are that much further away.

Many labor leaders are away on summer vacations, and this may be why they are unwilling to put in the time to organize an impressive parade. At the same time, management is fully staffed and is preparing for the upcoming negotiations.

If the Central Labor Council will not endorse a parade, labor leaders should act to reinvigorate this tradition as true activists and put a parade in place, until such time as the CLC reconsiders its decision.

FITZ REID, Executive Vice President, Local 768, DC 37, AFSCME