What frequently is described as the country’s biggest Labor Day parade will march Downtown from Centre Avenue (near Washington Place) over to Grant Street and then on down the Boulevard of the Allies to Stanwix Street starting at 10 a.m. Monday.
It’ll take a while, as organizers are saying it’ll consist of more than 100,000 union members and leaders, plus a long list of elected and would-be elected officials, community group members and some 15 college and high school marching bands.
That number of people would be quite something, but even if it’s not that many, the marchers and the spectators are going to make for a big crowd, especially at the end of what many have been calling “hot labor summer,” marked by a wave of unionizing and striking, including in this region.
“Our movement is growing. It causes a lot of excitement,” says Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council that’s helping to organize local labor’s big day.
It’s the 39th since the event resumed in 1984 and will be bigger than in recent years, when COVID-19 was prevalent. Throw in the fact that this is what Kelly calls “an important political season,” organizers are expecting even more national, state and local elected officials, too.
As of earlier this week, organizers said they’re expecting Gov. Josh Shapiro and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, state House Speaker Joanna McClinton and Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry, but, Kelly said, “It’s growing by the hour.”
Also expected are national AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, state AFL-CIO President Angela Ferritto and many other labor leaders.
Many of these figures are to attend the annual Labor Day mass at 8 a.m. at St. Benedict the Moor Church.
Kelly, as he loves to do, will walk the entire route and wind up at the review stand outside the United Steelworkers Building, where he’ll be shaking every hand that he can and beaming. But he plans to not be burned. “I’ll be putting sunblock on my head.”
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.
