Labor Day in Wisconsin

On Labor Day Sept. 5 in Milwaukee, thousands of multinational and intergenerational union and community members, youth and students marched from Zeidler Park (named after former socialist Milwaukee mayor, Frank Zeidler) down the city’s main thoroughfare of Wisconsin Avenue to the Summerfest Grounds.

Members carried dozens of union banners from private and public sector unions along with a worker center banner from the immigrant rights organization, Voces de la Frontera. Cultural contingents and labor-themed floats, including a boisterous one from the musicians, actors and stagehands unions, joined in. Many other Labor Day marches and parades took place statewide in Madison, Wausau and other locations.

The poor and working people of Wisconsin yet again issued a clear message this Labor Day: despite the union-busting law attacking public sector workers and the austerity measures implemented in the state in the past year, the class struggle against the bosses and bankers isn’t going away, it’s increasing.

—Report and photo by Bryan G. Pfeifer