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At Labor Day rallies, speakers decry Trump

Members of United Teachers Los Angeles cheer during a Labor Day rally in Wilmington on Monday.
(William Liang / For The Times)

By Julia Wick and Howard Blume

Sept. 1, 2025 2:23 PM PT

• Thousands of union members participated in marches, rallies and picnics on Labor Day throughout the Los Angeles region and across the country.
• They criticized Trump administration moves that have weakened labor unions.
• A White House proclamation Monday said President Trump’s actions are ‘reversing decades of neglect and finally putting American Workers first.’

Thousands of union members and others participated in marches, rallies and picnics on Labor Day throughout the Los Angeles region and across the country on Monday, decrying actions by the Trump administration that they say weaken unions and harm workers while strengthening and emboldening major corporations and the wealthy.

A White House proclamation Monday said President Trump’s actions are “reversing decades of neglect and finally putting American Workers first” by rewriting tax laws and creating a better economic climate for businesses.

His critics say he is undermining, in historic ways, the government and labor-union infrastructure established to protect workers — and therefore hurting individual workers.

Participants at a massive Wilmington rally and parade — organized by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor — united over a common foe: Trump.

“Donald Trump has gone too far,” said state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), as she and others linked typical Labor Day rhetoric directly to immigration raids. “On this Labor Day, we have an American president who takes parents from their children and workers from their jobs.”

The raids are no longer about border security, Durazo said, but “about breaking the backbone of our economy and terrorizing families.”

”Fighting for workers’ rights means fighting for immigrant rights,” said Angelica Salas, the executive director of the immigrant advocacy group CHIRLA.

Bishop Blaire Calls On Businesses, Churches, Unions, Private Citizens To Reduce Inequality In 2013 Labor Day Statement

August 12, 2013


Cites rampant income inequality in the midst of uneven economic recovery 
Urges bold action to create just economy with jobs that provide living wage
Calls for increased minimum wage, immigration reform, end to wage theft


WASHINGTON—The growing disparity in the income of U.S. workers is the focus of the 2013 Labor Day Statement of Bishop of Stockton, California, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

In the statement, dated September 2, Bishop Blaire said that most people want to live in a more equal society that provides opportunities for everyone. "The current imbalances do not have to be inevitable," Bishop Blaire wrote. "We must be bold in promoting a just economy that reduces inequality by creating jobs that pay a living wage and share with workers some profits of the company, as well as ensuring a strong safety net for jobless workers and their families and those who are incapable of work."

Bishop Blaire echoed the words of Pope Francis, that "work is fundamental to the dignity of a person…. it gives us the ability to maintain oneself, one's family, to contribute to the growth of one's own nation." Bishop Blaire said millions of workers are "denied this honor and respect as a result of unemployment, underemployment, unjust wages, wage theft, abuse or exploitation."

Even amid a modest economic recovery, he said, "Over four million people have been jobless for over six months, and that does not include the millions more who have simply lost hope; for every available job, there are as many as five unemployed and underemployed people actively vying for it. This gap pushes wages down – half of the jobs in this country pay less than $27,000. Over 46 million people live in poverty, 16 million of them children," he wrote.

He noted that individuals, the Church, businesses, government and community organizations all share the responsibility to create jobs that allow workers to support themselves and their families.

"Ethical and moral business leaders know that it is wrong to chase profits and success at the expense of workers' dignity," he wrote. "They know they have a vocation to build the kind of solidarity that honors the worker and the least among us. They remember that the economy is 'for people.'"

Bishop Blaire cited the importance of unions in helping workers participate in company decisions that affect them and noted that the rise in income inequality has paralleled the decline of unions in the United States. He urged unions to continually improve themselves and focus on issues including "raising the minimum wage, stopping wage theft," and "standing up for safe and healthy working conditions."

Bishop Blaire also voiced support for immigrants, calling for policies that "bring immigrant workers out of the shadows to a legal status and offer them a just and fair path to citizenship, so that their human rights are protected and the wages for all workers rise."

The 2013 Labor Day Statement is available online in English and Spanish at: www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/labor-employment/labor-day-archives.cfm

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Keywords: Labor Day, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, Stockton, California, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, unemployment, underemployment, income inequality, wage theft, workers, unions, businesses, economy, minimum wage, recession, human dignity, Pope Francis

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Familiar Obama Theme on Labor Day

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama spoke to an estimated crowd of 13,000 in Detroit, Michigan, on Labor Day.

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: September 5, 2011



DETROIT — Labor Day must seem like the movie “Groundhog Day” to President Obama. On Monday, for a third year he celebrated the holiday that honors workers with union members and their families in a political swing state, promising job-creation measures to reduce a 9 percent unemployment rate and calling on the Republican opposition to “put country before party.”

Mr. Obama, speaking to a riverfront crowd estimated by the police to number 13,000, said he would propose “a new way forward on jobs” in his speech on Thursday to a joint session of Congress, which returns this week from its August recess.

Mr. Obama did not provide details — “Tune in on Thursday,” he teased — but he said millions of unemployed construction workers would be able “to get dirty” building roads, bridges and other public works under his infrastructure proposals.

Organized labor and business leaders are on board, Mr. Obama said. “We just need Congress to get on board,” he said, prompting cheers of “Four more years!” from an audience filled with members of unions for autoworkers, public employees, service industry workers and teachers.

It remains unclear what new ideas Mr. Obama will propose on Thursday. But he faces high expectations after recent evidence that job growth has stalled and because of his own buildup since announcing a month ago that he would lay out a short-term stimulus program after Labor Day.

Mr. Obama also faces skepticism because of persistent unemployment. Recent polls give him his lowest ratings to date for job approval and his handling of the economy, though the ratings of Congress, and especially Republicans, are even more negative.

Mr. Obama has indicated that besides infrastructure proposals, he will call for extending and expanding temporary tax cuts for businesses and individuals, including a payroll tax cut for which he won Republicans’ support in December after agreeing to extend the Bush-era tax cuts on high income. He is expected to propose that employers get a tax credit for each new person hired, and to help local governments avert more teacher layoffs.

Separately next week, Mr. Obama is expected to recommend ways to reduce annual budget deficits to a special Congressional committee charged with finding up to $1.5 trillion in savings over 10 years. He plans to propose more than that in deficit reductions, aides say, partly to offset the stimulus costs.

But in Detroit Mr. Obama emphasized job creation. His backdrop was the high-rise headquarters of General Motors, which, along with Chrysler, has restructured and returned to profit and hiring after their rescue early in his administration.

“We’ve got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems.”

That expression of faith in bipartisanship drew loud groans of skepticism, reflecting a growing sentiment among Obama supporters that he is too conciliatory toward Republicans.

As if acknowledging the skeptics, Mr. Obama quickly added, to applause: “But we’re not going to wait for them. We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if Congressional Republicans will put country before party.”

Flying here with Mr. Obama were several union leaders, including Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who has been critical of his compromises with Republicans.

Also joining Mr. Obama was Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who, as Mr. Obama told his audience, gave the president a Labor Day address that President Harry S. Truman delivered in Detroit in 1948, the year of his come-from-behind election after campaigning against “do-nothing” Republicans.

Afterward, Mr. Levin said he told the president, “Here’s a ‘give ’em hell’ kind of speech.”

En route to Detroit, an Obama spokesman, Josh Earnest, volunteered to reporters that the president was in “a good mood.” Yet the familiarity of the day’s theme had to be sobering, particularly since Mr. Obama is just over a year away from Election Day — too little time for unemployment to fall much from heights that give Republicans hope of recapturing the White House.

The president’s Labor Day speeches trace the stubbornness of the crisis he inherited.

In 2009, he spoke to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. picnic in Cincinnati, just after the government reported 216,000 jobs lost in August — relatively good news because it marked a second month of declining losses from a high of 750,000 as Mr. Obama took office. Six months earlier, in February, a Democratic-controlled Congress had passed his two-year, $800 billion stimulus program of tax cuts and spending.

“It’s working,” Mr. Obama said then. Most economists agreed, though many have since concluded that the package was not forceful enough to counter a recession and crises in the financial and housing sectors. Republicans, who generally opposed it, continue to say that the stimulus program failed and that they will not support another round.

“We’re on the road to recovery, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Mr. Obama said two years ago. That would become a refrain.

Last year, Mr. Obama was in Wisconsin with union families. While private-sector hiring had expanded for eight months, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent — just a tenth of a percentage point lower than the year before. With his two-year stimulus plan winding down, Mr. Obama announced new plans for infrastructure projects and more.

“Now the plain truth is, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem,” he said in Milwaukee. “Even when I was running for this office, we knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade’s worth of policies that saw a few folks prosper while the middle class kept falling behind.”

But his infrastructure plans went nowhere before Republicans, capitalizing on voters’ economic frustrations, won control of the House in November.

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Obama expected to unveil jobs plan after Labor Day

Published: 11:32 AM, Wed Aug 17, 2011

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Seeking to jolt the economy, President Barack Obama will unveil new ideas to create jobs and help the struggling poor and middle class in a major speech after Labor Day. And then he will try to seize political advantage by spending the fall pressuring Congress to act on his plan.

Obama's plan is likely to contain a mix of tax cuts, jobs-boosting construction projects and steps to help the long-term unemployed, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. The official emphasized that Obama's proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, like his idea of an "infrastructure bank" to finance construction jobs.

On a related front, Obama will also present a specific plan to cut the staggering national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas. It will challenge the new "supercommittee" of Congress to go beyond its goal of finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.

Obama's major economic speech will come right after the Sept. 5 Labor Day holiday. Republicans were underwhelmed.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said Obama could scrap the speech and just hand over a detailed plan to Congress. "Seriously, just drop it in the mail. Podium not required," Buck said.

Obama will seek to use his economic proposals as leverage against Republicans in Congress, hoping to show a nation disgusted with gridlock that he is the one trying to get results. Obama's re-election campaign and the White House are also sure to use any specific ideas from the president as a way to blunt attacks from the Republicans hoping to run against him in next year's presidential election.

Already, Obama has been previewing his line of attack.

"My attitude is, get it done," he said in one Iowa town hall on Monday. "And if they (lawmakers) don't get it done, then we'll be running against a Congress that's not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear."

In Illinois on Wednesday, Obama is likely to touch on his economic plans during the final leg of a campaign-themed Midwest bus tour.

Meanwhile, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor prodded Obama to work with them. In an opinion piece published in USA Today, they focused on cutting taxes, easing regulations and finding new energy sources, and said GOP jobs bills now languish in the Democratic-led Senate.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer confirmed that Obama would release a package of economic initiatives and push Congress to act on them in early September.

The official who disclosed details on Obama's jobs and deficit plans spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet disclosed them. No final decisions on the economic package have been made.

Seeking re-election in a dispiriting economic time for the nation, Obama's rollout plan allows him to come into September swinging after one of the roughest periods of his presidency.

The economy has improved from the deep recession Obama inherited, but growth and hopes have stalled.

The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent. No president in recent history has been re-elected with a jobless rate nearly that high.

Obama's economic team has been hashing out the new package since he and Congress struck a last-minute debt deal in late July to prevent a debilitating government default.

As president, Obama is under unparalleled pressure to start showing more economic progress. His own job is expected to depend on it.

Nearly 14 million people are unemployed. Many millions more have given up looking for jobs or haven't found a way to move from part-time to full-time work.

The administration official would not offer details about the tax cuts Obama is likely to propose for the middle class.

They are expected to be separate from the extension of the payroll tax cut for employees that Obama has lobbied for by the day. Obama also has promoted a familiar list of other ideas, including patent reform and three major trade deals. And he has pushed for longer benefits for the chronically unemployed.

As for debt reduction, Obama is trying to have some say over the highly influential committee charged with recommending major changes fast.

That 12-person panel of Republicans and Democrats will start work in September on coming up with - by Nov. 23 - $1.5 trillion in savings over the coming decades. If not, or if Congress fails to approve the committee's plans, automatic spending cuts that both parties oppose would kick in across the government.

Obama's plan will be bigger. By how much isn't clear, but he has already envisioned $4 trillion in cuts over a slightly longer period of time.

He was in serious talks with Boehner during the recent, collapsed negotiations over a similar big package, between $3 trillion and $4 trillion. And those talks had included the potential for economic help like the payroll tax cut extension; Obama's new plan is likely to follow similar form.

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Gay guide released for New Orleans

Posted: Friday, 03 September 2010 8:00AM

Gay guide released for New Orleans

Associated Press Reporting

There's now an official gay and lesbian destination guide for New Orleans. The Navigaytour will launch just in time for the 39th Annual Southern Decadence Festival, which welcomes on average 100,000 attendees for events over the Labor Day weekend.

The 32-page guide highlights events, attractions, restaurants, bars, clubs, accommodations and neighborhoods.

This year, the Navigaytour guide features the first-ever Gay History Trail Map for New Orleans.

Its website says Navigaytour guides are only produced in conjunction with official tourist bureaus and Chambers of Commerce. The first was created in 2004 for Philadelphia; the group also has guides to Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Chicago and San Diego.


Source: http://www.wwl.com/Gay-guide-released-for-New-Orleans/8068017

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