I woke up with a dreadful headache this morning. I didn’t feel like writing the post I had planned, which had nothing to do with Labor Day in any event. That’s why I decided to go vintage with a post that originally had a long title, Fog Of Historical Pictures: Labor Day Edition.
It was first posted in 2016, then republished in 2019, so why not 2023?
At the end of the post, I added a picture of then Veep Joe Biden campaigning in Detroit on Labor Day, 2012.
I’ll wrap things up with a 2023 musical last word. I had to some laboring this Labor Day, after all.
Set the Wayback Machine to September 5, 2016.
Labor Day used to be the official kick-off of the general election campaign. It no longer is. Campaigns get longer every cycle and that’s not a good thing. It’s even worse this year because the conventions were so damn early. I’m taking today off from politics except for posting some election year photographs of Democratic nominees on Labor Day. I skipped the 1972 and 1976 nominees because neither McGovern nor Carter had warm relationships with labor. Besides, that would have been overkill. I picked 1984 as an cut-off since Fritz Mondale was the last nominee with close union ties before Joe Biden.
We begin with Harry Truman in Detroit in 1948:
I couldn’t find a decent picture of Adlai Stevenson parading on Labor Day but here’s a shot of him with AFL-CIO chief George Meany and UAW President Walter Reuther. We’ll see both Meany and Walter later:
The year is 1960. The candidate is Jack Kennedy. The place is Cadillac Square in Detroit:
Lyndon Johnson marching in Detroit with Walter Reuther in 1964:
Next up is Hubert Humphrey on a New York reviewing stand in 1968 with ILGWU boss Louis Stulberg to his left and George Meany to his right:
We skip forward to 1984 to HHH’s protégé, Walter Mondale with his running mate Geraldine Ferraro marching in the New York Labor Day parade:
Finally, then Veep Joe Biden in Detroit on Labor Day, 2012:
The 2023 last word goes to King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band:
Please, the old saw of “union bosses” needs to be retired. It’s just playing into the hands of anti-union forces like Amazon, Starbucks, etc. Unlike corporation heads, the leaders of American Labor Unions are actually elected by the members they represent, though either Delegate votes at conventions, or through direct membership votes (as in my union the United Steelworkers). “ILGWU boss Louis Stulberg” indeed.
Tell you what. If you stop calling today’s GOPers conservatives, I’ll stop using labor boss.