Fifth Avenue in Manhattan flowed with thousands of workers on Sept. 7 as the city’s union workforce celebrated the 142nd Annual Labor Day Parade.
Workers representing more than 200 unions and constituency groups came together in a celebration of solidarity for what is one of the country’s largest and oldest Labor Day customs.
New York City held the first Labor Day holiday in the nation on Sept. 5, 1882, with thousands marching from City Hall up to Union Square. It wasn’t until 1894, when 23 more states had adopted the holiday, that President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.
To commemorate New York City’s leading role in the labor movement, Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO hosts the annual procession of hundreds of union floats up Fifth Avenue through Manhattan every year to create a platform for the city’s labor issues and organizing wins on a massive scale.
In its usual fashion, the parade moved up the central Manhattan corridor as a cheerful display of colorful floats and marching bands. But the idea undergirding the tradition is not only to celebrate but to raise awareness of barriers that New York City’s unions face daily.
John Murphy, who was nominated to be the parade’s Grand Marsha this year, serves as the international representative of the United Association, a union that represents workers in the plumbing and pipefitting industries among others. He told LaborPress it was his goal “to represent my organization, to understand that the organization gets the recognition it deserves. It’s the men and women from our local unions that get to celebrate that day with me. And it just makes me extremely proud.”
The theme of this year’s parade is “All Workers, Many Voices, One Fight,” which was chosen to reflect the unity that NYC workers and union members from diverse backgrounds share and highlight a shared set of goals around better workplace conditions.
The Parade Chair Fallon Ager-Norman, who serves as the regional director for the United Food and Commercial Workers’ (UFCW) northeast district. She rose to her position as one of the top positions at the International level of the union after starting as a clerk.
“It’s just always so inspiring. You leave feeling reinvigorated and just wanting to reaffirm your commitment to the movement. I know I’ve looked up to people who have had the honor of being in this role in years past and to be held in that regard is extremely humbling,” Fallon Ager-Norman told LaborPress.
