By Mark Sommer
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Sign-carrying union workers in Monday’s Labor Day Parade through South Buffalo celebrated the historic role of organized labor and raised the call for more job creation in economically challenging times.
Teachers, letter carriers, musicians, health care workers and public employees were among the dozens of union local members who walked the 1.5-mile route, which concluded in Cazenovia Park. They were joined by marching bands, large transport vehicles, makeshift floats and numerous Democratic Party politicians and their supporters.
“This day is in remembrance of all the hard fighting for workers’ rights, for civil rights and union rights,” said Dan Boody, business manager of the painters union.
“Whether it’s an eight-hour day, overtime, workers’ comp, health and safety, children [labor laws] — it’s labor that has fought for the middle class, for good wage-earners and for putting back into the community. It’s our day of celebration.”
Signs on display included “Stop the War on Workers,” “You Hold the Power,” “Good Jobs Create Sustainable Communities” and, from the Buffalo Newspaper Guild, “Protect Quality Journalism.”
“We need jobs. That’s the only way we are going to get this economy back on track,” said Michael Hoffer, president of the Buffalo AFL-CIO Council. “Austerity is the wrong way to go. We need to invest in our infrastructure and get people working.”
The national employment rate stood at 9.1 percent for August, with as many as 25 million Americans unemployed and underemployed. Many face foreclosures. In Buffalo, the unemployment rate was 7.5 percent in May.
Before the parade began, Hoffer and other labor leaders held a big show of support for Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County comptroller who is running against County Executive Chris Collins and was this year’s grand marshal.
Poloncarz was introduced prior to speaking at a media event outside the Buffalo Irish Center as the “polar opposite, the antidote to Chris Collins and what he has done for four years in this county.”
Members of Actors Equity, dubbed the “Poloncarz Posse,” rode in a covered wagon with a sign that read, “Go Left Young Man.”
Collins, who appeared at the Labor Day parade in Clarence Center, issued a statement later Monday contending that “Poloncarz is the polar opposite by supporting higher taxes, higher spending, more government debt and policies that strangle job creation.”
The Working Families Party had a truck showing the Mad Hatter inside a tea cup with the words, “Tea Party is not our cup of tea. Have a cup of coffee with the WFP.”
“People work hard their entire life, and they’re being made to lose jobs, take cuts, but don’t [tax] millionaires … it all seems backwards. You’re just beating the middle class lower,” said Dave Chudy, the political party’s vice chairman.
That outlook was shared by onlooker Dave Chadwick of South Buffalo.
“We all need jobs, but at this time we need more of them, and really, good-paying jobs is the key. Got to have the living wage going. You can’t keep America going if you don’t have jobs,” Chadwick said.
Andy Reynolds, an organizer with the Coalition for Economic Justice, pointed to Wall Street.
“Our state and local budgets are being balanced on the backs of working people and average taxpayers, in order to turn our economy around, and the sacrifice really needs to be truly shared. The bankers and Wall Street investors need to pay their fair share,” Reynolds said.
The parade, as usual, bore a resemblance to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, with a 19-member fife and drum corps and traditional Irish dancers performing in the Irish neighborhood.
Labor Day began in 1882 in New York City. It became an official holiday by an act of Congress a dozen years later.