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News Briefs

Date Posted: August 19 2005

Celebrate Labor's Day on Sept. 5
The building trades and the rest of organized labor will on the march again on Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 5, and union members across Michigan are urged to make plans to attend celebrations in their community.

Parades and parties are planned in Detroit, Ishpeming (near Marquette) and Muskegon.

The Detroit parade kicks off at 9:30 a.m., with the building trades lining up as usual along Trumbull, south of Michigan Ave.

The lineup will be led by the IBEW, followed by the Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, Roofers and Waterproofers, Elevator Constructors, Painters and Allied Trades, Cement Masons/Plasterers, Sheet Metal Workers, Iron Workers, Laborers, Pipe Trades, Boilermakers, Heat and Frost Insulators, Teamsters and Operating Engineers.

An American Red Cross blood drive will be held in the basement of the IBEW Local 58 union hall from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Labor Day.

The traditional Labor Day Festival will not be in Marquette this year, but in Ishpeming, southwest of Marquette at the Cliff's Shaft Museum site. The parade will start at 11 a.m. EST on Labor Day, with a picnic at noon and a program at about 1 p.m.

In Muskegon, the West Michigan United Labor Day Parade will be at Pere Marquette Park. Participants will meet at the Harbortown parking lot between 9:30-10:30 a.m. for shirts and hats. The shuttle will take participants to the staging area. The parade starts at 11 a.m. with a picnic to follow.

There will be no Labor Day Parade in Grand Rapids this year. Unionists from Grand Rapids are encouraged to join the celebration in Muskegon. If you need directions, call the UA Local 174 union hall, (616) 837-0222.

And in St. Ignace, union members are always encouraged to join the governor in the annual Mackinac Bridge walk on Labor Day. Participants can start walking anytime after the governor begins her trek, starting at about 7 a.m. No one will be permitted to walk after 11 a.m. 

Trades re-elect Sullivan, Maloney
Re-elected this month to lead the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department were President Edward Sullivan and Secretary-Treasurer Joseph Maloney.

Both were unopposed and elected to five-year terms by the 300 delegates attending the department's annual convention in Boston.

Given the ongoing strife with unions leaving the AFL-CIO and becoming part of the new Change To Win Coalition, Sullivan told delegates, "We cannot afford to be fighting with each other. It saps our resources and our resolve. Rather, we must turn our attention where it belongs - toward our real adversaries in the political and private sectors, who take comfort in any sign of labor disunity."

Several unions last month bolted the AFL-CIO to form the Change to Win Coalition - the largest among them include the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the Teamsters. The deadline has also passed for the Carpenters to rejoin the AFL-CIO - which means, according to federation bylaws, that they also must drop out of the Building Trades Department.

Sullivan signaled that the door has not completely shut on the Carpenters, and that "we will continue to work together to ensure that our differences do not disrupt jobsites and that the important progress we have made with contractors and owners will continue."