NYC Labor Day Events

THE PARADE

On September 9, UAW locals in the New York area responded to the racist terror that took place in Charlottesville the previous month. While we didn’t expect to see any Nazis that day, we did march past Trump Tower, home to the #1 white supremacist in the country, behind a huge banner that read: “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!” People watching the march on Fifth Avenue literally burst into applause as we marched by. We later stopped in front of Trump Tower for a short demonstration to make our point.

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THE LEUNG SISTERS’ LABOR

For Labor Day this year, the NWUSO, the non profit arm of NWU, created the poster, We Built New York, from a project we initiated last winter:  It’s a statewide initiative to use writers to help generate first person stories of workers, and create a workers history.

Our first official class, aside from a bunch that were less official, involved retired Chinese garment workers, immigrant women who worked for WORKERS UNITED, and told stories of coming to America, coming to work, and building a life.  Photographer Matthew Septimus created portraits for the class, and two of the women from the class, the Leung sisters, are subjects of this year’s Labor Day poster.  The Leung sisters are Chinese women born in Vietnam; they  worked in garment shops most of their lives.  The project honors their lives and stories.  In November the NWU along with the New York Central Labor Council and the Workforce Development Institute will host an exhibit and a celebration in Chinatown.