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This Monday, Labor Day September 4 will see the largest Labor Day parade in memory, Greater St. Louis Labor Council President Pat White announced today, inviting the public to bring their family, lawn chairs and sun visors to what will be an exciting, fun-filled two hours.

More than 5,000 marchers from 30 unions with miles of equipment, trucks, floats, marching bands, drill teams and other units will step off at 9 a.m. from 15th and Olive, go east to Tucker Blvd., south to Market and west on Market to the parade stand at 15th and Market where it will end. Following the parade numerous unions will have picnics in the park between Chestnut and Market.

Parade Marshalls are St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger. The parade’s theme, “Together We Win,” highlights and displays the skills and services union members in all walks of life provide as well as celebrating the importance of ALL working men and women who have indeed made, and continue to make, America great, White said.

Leading the parade will be several unions celebrating anniversaries, St. Louis Musicians Local 2-197 band and the Roosevelt High School Marine Corps Junior ROTC Color Guard. Also marching will be the United States Navy Great Lakes Band and six other St. Louis marching units from area high schools.

And there will be lots of candy for the kids being distributed from the many floats, trucks and cars and the thousands of union marchers. “Before it’s all over, there will be at least a ton of candy given out. The kids love it. It’s better than Halloween!” added White.

Spaced throughout the parade will be the electrifying Wichita Dynamic Steppers Drill Team and Drum Line from Wichita, Kansas, the Hazelwood Central Marching Band (sponsored by Electrical Workers Local 1), the McClure South High School Marching Band, the Spirits of New Northside Drill Team (from the Northside Family Life Center), the St. Louis Marching Cobras and Musicians Local 2-197.

PRIOR TO THE ST. LOUIS PARADE

Preceding the parade will be a three-stage “Save the Wage” Rally:

• 6 a.m. protest at the McDonald’s on 1119 N. Tucker to protest cutting back the current $10 an hour wage to $7.65 more than 30,000 workers;
• 7 a.m. – march from McDonalds to a public rally.
• 8 a.m.- rally at 18th and Olive to urge more St. Louis’ businesses to maintain the $10 an hour wage that been already agreed to by over 100 firms.

ILLINOIS EVENTS

Additionally, there will be Labor Day parades and festivities in:

• Granite City – Parade will begin at 10 a.m. downtown and proceed one mile north to Wilson Park for a picnic with live music, speeches, food, refreshments and kids’ activities.
• Belleville – Parade will step off at 10 a.m. in the fourth block of South 1st Street, ending at Hough Park with the annual picnic, where the first $500 worth of rides will be free. Music, drinks and food will be available.

Pat White, President of the Greater St. Louis Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO issued the following statement in response to executive orders issued by President Donald Trump last week.

Like so many of our brothers and sisters, we were horrified to watch over the last week as the President issued executive orders that threaten to criminalize immigrant communities, increase racial and ethnic profiling, erode due process, and in an affront to our most cherished values, use religion as a litmus test to turn away people seeking protection at our shores.  These orders threaten to tear apart the threads that bind our country and our labor movement.  Instead of uprooting and deporting our coworkers, neighbors, families and friends, we must bind together in solidarity and fight for policies that will promote real economic and racial justice in our country.

These are hard days for our movement and our members, locally and nationally.  Although we don’t often talk about it, the roots of our local movement were planted by Irish and German immigrants who endured persecution. They endured that violence to build the power to fight for work with dignity and demand just working conditions for us and for the sakes of our families. We found strength in our diverse membership in 1978 when we first had to fend off deceptively named Right to Work, as we do in this moment when we find ourselves fighting off the onslaught of Missouri Legislature hostile to the needs of our working families.

We commit ourselves to standing with our brothers and sisters in this moment.  Working people have endured worksite and community raids before.  We recognize these raids for what they are – an attempt to keep working people afraid and weaken their collective power to join together as labor unions.  As a labor movement, we represent thousands of refugee members, as well as the front line service providers who ensure that refugees are properly screened and have their basic human needs addressed. As our political climate grows more divisive, we must reach for each other to deepen solidarity and increase our strength.  We will continue to demand that our nation’s leaders take action to lift working people up, rather than making it even harder for us to get ahead.  Our country needs more bridges into the middle class, not walls to divide us.

Union Workers and Mesothelioma

This year thousands of Americans will be diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. As union workers, you and your family have a higher risk of exposure.

The sad truth is that companies knew about the dangers of asbestos exposure, but remained silent. Now, after a latency period of 10 to 50 years, union workers are developing mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. Similarly, their family members are falling ill due to asbestos exposures that occurred when workers brought the dust home on their clothes and skin.

American workers have been led to believe that asbestos is no longer a threat and that, if you become sick, you have no medical or legal options. That’s simply not true. Help is available. The lawyers at Simmons Hanly Conroy represent hundreds of union members and their families throughout the United States affected by asbestos exposure.

Find out all you need to know HERE

This year’s theme: ‘Stand With Working Families’

A lottery drawing at the St. Louis Labor Council’s July meeting has set the parade line-up for the Greater St. Louis Labor Council’s Labor Day Parade on Sept. 7. All except for Sheet Metal Workers (SMART) Local 36, which requests it always be the last unit in the parade, were selected at the meeting.

This year’s parade theme is “Stand with Working Families.”

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Attorney General (and 2016 candidate for governor) Chris Koster have been invited to serve as grand marshals.

Groups will start forming at 7 a.m. on Olive Street between Jefferson and 15^th Street.

The parade will step off at 9 a.m. led by the mayor, police chief and fire chief, and immediately followed by a horse-drawn trolley with 20 members of the Musicians Association of St. Louis Local 2-197, and proceed east on Olive at 15^th to Tucker Blvd., south on Tucker to Market Street, then west on Market to 15^th.

LINE-UP

The remaining parade lineup from front to back:

• IATSE Stagehands Local 6
• Gas Workers Local 11-6
• IBEW Locals 1, 2, 4, 1439 and IUOE Local 148
• Laborers Locals 42, 53, 110 and 660
• Bricklayers Local 1 and Insulators Local 1
• Machinists and Aerospace Workers
• Teamsters Locals 600, 610, 618, 682 and 688
• Decorators/Displaymen Local 39
• Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 562
• Carpenters District Council
• St. Louis Police Officers Association
• CWA Locals 6300, 6350 and City Council
• Painters District Council 58 and Glaziers Local 513
• Iron Workers Local 396
• Cement Masons Local 527
• Operating Engineers Local 513
• APWU STL Gateway & NALC Branch 343
• UAW Locals 2250 and 282
• UFCW Local 655
• CBTU
• Firefighters Locals 2665, 73 and West County EMS
• AFT St. Louis Local 420
• SEIU Local 1 and SEIU Health Care
• Roofers Local 2
• Sprinkler Fitters Local 268
• Elevator Constructors Local 3
• Amalgamated Transit Union Local 788
• SMART Local 36

Contact our office for any additional information

Also printed in The Labor Tribune 

By TIM ROWDEN

Editor (Labor Tribune)

To thunderous applause Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed a measure June 4 that would have made Missouri the 26th right-to-work state, calling the bill (HB 116) a threat to unionized workers and wages

“For generations, the ability of workers to join together and bargain collectively for fair wages, and training has lifted the living standards of families everywhere both union and non-union,” Nixon told a standing room only crowd at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 union hall and training center. The crowd included including representatives of what appeared to be every union local in the greater St. Louis area, state and local politicians and community workers’ rights activists.

“House Bill 116 is a war on your pay check,” Nixon said, as the crowd erupted in cheers. “It cannot become law!”

The bill would have barred security clauses from union contracts, meaning workers who are not union members would no longer pay a fair share free to support the union’s collective bargaining activities, although unions would still be required to offer the same services to all workers under the contract, limiting their ability to negotiate and support workers.

The bill would have also made it a class C misdemeanor – punishable by 15 days in jail and unlimited civil penalties – to require people to pay dues.

Nixon credited unions with providing U.S. workers with “a ticket to the Middle Class and the opportunity to pursue the American Dream” and vowed to spend “the next 105 days” between Nixon’s June 4 veto and the end of the Legislature’s fall veto session solidifying support to sustain his veto.

Nixon traveled to Kansas City earlier in the day to announce the veto among about 200 local United Auto Workers at the Claycomo Ford assembly plant.

‘A PROUD MOMENT’

Proponents are working hard to muster enough support in the Republican-led Legislature to override the Governor’s veto.“It’s a very proud moment,” Mike Louis, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO said of the Governor’s veto. “I hope legislators on both sides of the aisle continue to do the right thing and support the working people in the state of Missouri.”

The Senate passed HB 116 by a vote of 21-13. It passed by 92-66 in the House. To override the veto, the Republican-controlled Legislature would need 23 votes in the Senate and 109 in the House.

Pat White, president of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council said: “The work starts now. It’s going to be our job to thank the people who were with us, and the flip the people who were on the other side of the fence.”

‘MISSOURIANS HAVE ALREADY SPOKEN’

“Missourians have already spoken on this,” said Nixon, referring to the state’s 1978 vote against a right-to-work referendum, “and we’re going to speak one more time.

“This legislation would take our state backwards, squeeze the middle class, lower wages for Missouri families and subject businesses to criminal and civil liability

“The special interests who are supporting this bill don’t want to talk about the damaging effects it would have, so they’ve given it a misleading name: ‘right-to-work.’ But the truth is right-to-work is wrong and it will not work.”

LOWER WAGES FOR ALL WORKERS

“There’s a lot of things wrong with this bill,” Nixon said. “Making it harder for workers to organize and collectively bargain will not strengthen our economy. In fact, this legislation would reduce wages for everyone. In states with these laws, workers – all workers – are making thousands of dollars less per year than they do in states that haven’t made this mistake.

Nixon questioned whether any working person and voter would support a bill that they knew would result in their getting paid less for the same job.

“Even supporters of this bill admit it will lead to lower wages,” Nixon said. “Since when did we elect people to come to power and say ‘Our job is to make sure that workers make less money?’ Folks, that’s just wrong.

“We may still have challenges with our economy, but paying workers too much is not one of those problems.”

‘BIG GOVERNMENT OVERRREACH’

Nixon said the bill was also anti-business, representing the same kind of “big government overreach” that proponents of the bill say they’re against.

“This bill represents exactly the kind of big government overreach that proponents of this bill say that they’re against,” Nixon said. “This is the government coming in and telling private companies what they can do. This is the government coming in and putting unlimited civil damages and liability and crimes against businesses.

“Employers like Boeing and GM have spent years developing skilled, reliable and safe workforces to deliver quality products to their customers. And they’ve honorably sat across the table and negotiated all kinds of things,” Nixon said. “Many other businesses don’t use union workers, and that’s their choice. Here in Missouri, we believe companies should have the freedom to decide how they run their businesses.”

SURROUNDED BY RTW

Most of Missouri’s eight neighboring states already have right-to-work laws; the only two that don’t are Illinois and Kentucky.

The Legislature effectively shut down the last week of session after some GOP senators forced a vote on the measure. Democrats in response filibustered for days, allowing only one other bill to pass in the Senate.This year marks the first that Missouri legislators were able to foster enough support to send a bill to the governor, but not without paying a price.

“Which businesses came to what legislator and said, ‘When you go to Jeff City what I want you to do is put more lawsuits against me and more crimes against me for who I hire and what I say when I hire them,’ Nixon asked. “That’s not good for business, folks. It’s simply not good for business.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Nixon, a longtime opponent of right-to-work, is term-limited out and cannot run for re-election next year.

White, the St. Louis Labor Council president said: “This makes it even more important in next year’s election to put another governor in there who’s going to be as good as Gov. Nixon.”

By SHERI GASSAWAY
Correspondent (Article published in Labor Tribune)

A push to raise minimum wage in the City of St. Louis is fueling excitement among community leaders, workers and even business owners.

On Friday, June 5, the St. Louis Board of Alderman introduced a bill that would increase the minimum wage for workers in the city to $15 an hour by 2020. If approved, the minimum wage would immediately jump from $7.65 to $10 an hour, and rate increases would be phased in each year beginning in 2017.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay discussed the critical need for the increase during a news conference June 4 at City Hall. About 150 people attended the event, including representatives from St. Louis Jobs with Justice (JwJ) and Progress Missouri.

“Make no mistake about it – we are going to raise minimum wage in St. Louis,” Mayor Slay said. “It will help thousands of St. Louisans build a better future for themselves, and it will help build an economy that works for everyone.”

CURRENT WAGE ‘NOT ENOUGH’

Twenty-fifth Ward Alderman Shane Cohn, the bill’s sponsor, said anyone who works full-time shouldn’t have to struggle with the basics of housing, food, childcare and education, let alone trying to save any money.

“The current wage of $7.65 is not enough to survive and provides for a substandard quality of life,” Cohn said. “We have to take care of the people who are willing to take care of themselves.”

Ruth Ehresman, co-chair of St. Louis (JwJ) Workers’ Rights Board, thanked Slay and Cohn for their leadership in standing up for workers.

“Jobs with Justice is very excited to be taking these meaningful steps toward raising the minimum wage in St. Louis,” she said.

‘WE STRUGGLE’

Workers and a business owner at the news conference shared personal experiences and views on the importance of raising the minimum wage in St. Louis.

Latasha Chapple, a 33-year-old mother of three who works at Wendy’s in St. Louis, said the current minimum wage is not enough to pay the bills and feed her three children even with food stamp assistance.

“Sometimes I have to ask my 16-year-old who also works in the fast food industry to help pay the bills so we can eat,” she said. “We struggle in life.”

Mikey Carrasco, co-owner of Taco Circus, a new business that opened about three months ago in South City. He has four employees and says he pays them in line with what the city is proposing.

“I’m totally cool with the city’s proposed minimum wage increase,” he said. “If I pay my employees more money, then they have more money to spend which helps the overall economy.”

ABOUT THE BILL

The bill would set the minimum wage for employees who work 20 hours a week at $10 as soon as it becomes law. The minimum wage would be increased to $11.25 an hour in 2017, $12.50 an hour in 2018, $13.75 an hour in 2019 and $15 an hour in 2020. The wage increase would apply to all business in the City of St. Louis except those with revenues less than $500,0000 or 15 or fewer employees.

The Missouri legislature recently passed House Bill 722, which prohibits cities from raising the minimum wage above the state level. The bill would go into effect Aug. 28 if Gov. Jay Nixon’s signs it.

Slay said he believes the aldermen will have sufficient time to debate the matter and come to a resolution prior to Aug. 28 even if they have to hold extra meetings.

Karen Lyons, executive assistant to the Greater St. Louis Labor Council president, died peacefully last week, at home, surrounded by her family, following a four-year battle with cancer. She was 66.

“Karen was the heart and soul of the Labor Council,” Labor Council President Pat White wrote in an email to Council members. “She worked tirelessly to manage the day to day activities of the office and also deliver impeccable special events.   Karen was a master of details, which made each event and member feel special.

“Karen was most proud of her work with $5 for the Fight and was honored to be able to support struggling union members.

“Karen’s leadership over the past decade has left us with a strong foundation which enables us to successfully move forward with Labors message to the St. Louis region. She will be greatly missed.”

Sister Karen is survived by her beloved husband of 17 years, Michael, and children Megan (Kami Sanders) of St. Louis, Christine (Pete) Salsich III of St. Louis, and Julie (John) Pins of Geneva, IL, and 5 grandchildren: Peter IV, Erin and Courtney Salsich and Caroline and Matthew Pins. She also is survived by her Gaeng siblings, Daniel (Marybeth), Jane A., David T., Timothy J. (Kathy), Thomas G., Michael (Glennis) and John (Gloria) and numerous nieces and nephews.

Sister Karen was preceded in death by her parents Kenneth and Rosemary Gaeng and brothers James J.,Gregory K. (Jacklyn) and Graham.

Sister Karen was a resident of St. Charles, MO. Born on November 6, 1948, she attended St. Gregory School in St. Ann, MO and St. Mark’s Academy.

Visitation will held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Collier’s Funeral Home 3400 North Lindbergh Blvd. in St. Ann.

A memorial mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 18, at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 3519 N. 14th Street in St. Louis.