Labor Day Parade Sneak Peek
Labor Day is upon us, and we all know what that means: the backyard grilling of hotdogs, a relaxed goodbye to summer, and the doomsday clock counting down to the return of Christmas Mariah Carey moves a minute closer to midnight. But why is there a leisurely day of relaxation called Labor Day?
In the late 1800s, the Industrial Revolution began to shift the way that many people made a living, trading farming for factory jobs. Missing from factory towns and the jobs that came with them, though, was anything resembling workers’ rights and safety. It was common for work to be six days a week, 10 hours a day. Child labor still existed, and minimum wage was nowhere to be seen.
So who could speak for the common worker? The answer was organized labor unions. Organized labor is responsible for many workers’ rights that we now take for granted, with the most notable being the eight-hour work day.
“...everywhere slogans were heard like
"Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Rest,
Eight Hours for What We Will!" or
"Shortening the Hours Increase the Pay".
William J. Adelman, The Haymarket Affair
The eight-hour work day was not new by the 1880s; in fact federal workers were given an eight-hour work day in 1869 and local laws had already begun to pass all across the country. The problem became that employers would demand that workers waive their right as a condition of being hired.
The first Labor Day parade was on September 5th, 1882, in New York City. Then, a celebration of labor unions and over 25,000 showing pride in their work, with "...men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the other paraphernalia of a procession."
Illustration of the first American Labor parade held in New York City on September 5, 1882 as it appeared in the September 16, 1882 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper via Wikimedia Commons
Although organized labor was gaining steam by 1886 in Illinois, people still pursued their rights by being vocal in the streets. On May 1st, 1886, in Chicago, over 80,000 marched in support of enforcing the eight-hour work day, and meetings continued throughout the week. On May 4th, things turned violent at a smaller speaking event at Haymarket Square. A dynamite bomb was thrown at a group of police by an unknown person, and in response the police began firing on the crowd and each other. Seven police officers and four workers were killed. Martial law was declared not just in Chicago, but nationally.
Wood engraving depicting the Haymarket riot, 1886. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The demand for more labor rights remained heated into the next decade, with the birth of what we know as Labor Day coming out of the aftermath of the Pullman Strike. In the late spring of 1894, during a recession, the Pullman Company stopped producing railcars due to lack of demand. Most of the workers lived in a Pullman “company town” and began to feel the squeeze of not having employment. In response, organized rail labor began boycotting any train that had a Pullman car, in solidarity with the Pullman workers. This boycott impacted rail deliveries nationally, and similarly to the Haymarket Square bombing, things ended up turning violent on July 7th, 1894, when looters attacked railcars, setting some ablaze. Both state and federal troops attacked the crowds.
By this point over 30 states had already adopted a day celebrating Labor, and as a show of good faith and calm nerves, Labor Day became a federal holiday in late 1894.
This year, Boston will be the scene of a Labor Day Parade hosted by the Greater Boston Labor Council, and Mass 50501 will be joining the march! We’ll proceed through the city and pass by several demonstrations set up by the various unions undergirding the event, ending at City Hall Plaza for a speaking program about the importance of organized labor. Learning more about labor power is particularly important in the unsteady political climate we find ourselves in. Read on to learn more about the significance of the locations the unions have chosen to set up their demonstrations along our parade route!
Public domain photo via Wikimedia Commons
First Public School Site on School Street
The first stop along the parade route honors Massachusetts’ deep commitment to fair and free public education, past and present. Massachusetts has consistently led the nation in education, earning the top ranking in a 2025 review. It might, then, come as no surprise to learn that Boston is home to the site of the first public school in the United States, Boston Latin, which was founded in 1635. The school’s original location is marked along the Freedom Trail by a sidewalk mosaic and a statue of Benjamin Franklin, an alumnus of the school. The first taxpayer-funded schools followed shortly after in Dedham and Rehoboth. Massachusetts employs 77,220 full time public school teachers (pre-K through grade 12) and the Massachusetts Teachers Association represents 117,000 members. The state is also home to 15 community colleges, nine state universities, and five public university campuses.
The Trump administration has been attempting to chip away at public education, with threats to pull federal funding from schools that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion and through plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Massachusetts is not backing down. (Trump’s anti-DEI policy has been successfully blocked in court. The Massachusetts Teachers Association has consistently worked to protect public education, support LGBTQIA+ students, and maintain academic freedom.
While Massachusetts earned the top spot for public education, it ranked 14th for supporting teachers. This parade stop reminds us of Massachusetts’ history of strong public education and the important impact that teachers have on all aspects of our society. Supporting our teachers and protecting public education—from pre-K through college, Registered Apprenticeships, and trade schools—remains vital to ensuring a well-functioning democracy.
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BlackRock
The second stop along the parade route is 60 State St., home to BlackRock’s local corporate offices. As of June 2025, BlackRock’s managed assets are over $11 trillion dollars. To put that into perspective, the GDP of the United States in 2024 was roughly $29 trillion dollars. In other words, BlackRock manages assets equal to almost 40 percent of all goods and services produced in the United States in a year. Part of these investment corporations’ portfolios are connected to retirement accounts of everyday American workers. It is also important to highlight that BlackRock itself is a publicly traded company. With BlackRock’s stock price at over $1100 a share, it is much more likely that your average worker retirement is tied to the investment packages that BlackRock offers as opposed to investment in BlackRock stock itself. Some have questioned how a company of such a size can both be a neutral party investment firm, and at the same time be so large that their influence on market standards could be ignored. When it comes to its internal performance, will BlackRock be looking out for your retirement, or its own stock price? The current federal administration has taken a deregulatory approach to the banking industry, and with hits already coming to customer protection, it is more important than ever to wonder whose voice is speaking up for the everyday worker.
There are also industry concerns regarding investing in future technologies such as AI. With generative AI tools such as Asimov, BlackRock’s virtual investment assistant, not only is there a regulatory question of how we can ensure safeguards to protect against unintended market impact, but it leaves the question of while firms like BlackRock invest in asset growth, who will invest in the training of the workforce of the future to ensure we all have a part in it.
Photo via Mass 50501 volunteer on 2/17/2025
Faneuil Hall
In its nearly three centuries of existence, Faneuil Hall, the third stop on the tour, has many ties to the history of labor within Boston, from the slave-trade money that built the building, to its rosier history serving as a central meeting place for activism and debate in later years. Famously, several important speeches in the history of abolition and women's suffrage were given here. It will not surprise the reader to learn that the Hall was home to many important milestones in the local labor movement as well.
One of the earliest trade unions in the city, the Boston Trades’ Union, was founded at Faneuil Hall in 1834, with the goal of standardizing a 10-hour work day for tradesmen. While this early effort failed, later efforts would be more successful. A Typographical Union, No. 13, was founded in 1848. Thirty years later, this union would go on to organize the Boston Central Labor Union, a direct ancestor of the Greater Boston Labor Council. Faneuil Hall would continue to be used as a meeting place for the member unions, who often held votes there on whether to strike or not. Among the lists of strikes organized there are two of the longest strikes in state history: the Thomas G. Plant Shoe Factory strike of 1919-1920, and the United Packinghouse Workers’ strike of 1954-55, each of which went on for over a year. Another key event is the creation of a Women’s Trade Union League, which took place at Faneuil Hall during the 23rd annual confederation of the American Federation of Labor, led by famed labor organizer Samuel Gompers.
Much of the information here comes from Sari Roboff’s Boston’s Labor Movement: An Oral History of Work and Union Organizing, which we recommend for further reading.
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100 Sudbury Street
A luxury highrise building (“The Sudbury Apartments”) at 100 Sudbury Street is the fourth point of interest along the parade route. It is the site of a current labor dispute between 32BJ SEIU and the building’s owner, real estate firm Carmel Partners. Local 32BJ—a branch of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—is a union of more than 185,000 property service workers in the Northeast, including cleaners, property maintenance workers, doormen, security officers, airport workers, window cleaners, building engineers, and school and food service workers. The dispute began in July 2024 when eight cleaners at the Sudbury—all Latino immigrants—were fired from their union jobs and replaced with non-union workers who were paid less per hour and provided with fewer benefits. The displaced workers, in addition to losing their livelihood, also lost their employer-sponsored health insurance and benefits. The broader context of this dispute, as reported by the Boston Globe, includes the changing landscape of Downtown Boston. As remote work has become more commonplace, many office buildings have transitioned into apartment complexes. Because few residential cleaners are organized, remaining cleaning jobs in residential buildings lack stabilized union pay and benefits. Non-union cleaning jobs earn between $4 and $9 less than the current union rate of $24 and lack benefits like paid vacation time, a pension, and employer-sponsored health insurance.
32BJ SEIU has held five rallies supporting the displaced workers and Mayor Wu has supported the union’s efforts. SEIU believes in the dignity and worth of all workers. While this contract dispute focuses on a small number of workers, it serves as a microcosm of how the billionaire ruling class is hurting the average citizen.
Photo via Mass 50501 volunteer on 2/5/2025
JFK Building
The final stop of the Labor Day parade is the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building in City Hall Plaza. Constructed in 1963 and named in honor of President Kennedy after his assassination, this building houses the primary local headquarters of many federal offices. We stop at this building to bring attention to how federal funding cuts are hurting federal services which support Boston’s workers. The local offices operating out of this building employ over 2100 members of our community—these federal workers shop at our grocery stores, go to our churches, and their kids go to school with our kids. When funding cuts force reduction in staffing, many of these people will be out of work.
And after the funding cuts reduce the staffing, the hours, and the services provided at these offices, those in our community who rely on these services—who are many—will also be hurt. The federal programs administered in the JFK Building provide services and oversight that protect you. For instance, we rely on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ensure that we enjoy the freedom to work and live without discrimination in all its forms, no matter who you are, where you live or where you were born, how you pray, or who you love. We rely on the Department of Labor to enforce labor laws, which locally includes a support line to report unfair labor practices, wage theft, and labor retaliation. And we rely on the Department of Health and Human Services, the CMS, and the VA office, to provide us the security to care for the people we love without going broke—from child care to elder care. Ensuring not only access to healthcare, but to quality healthcare, allows us to retire with dignity after a lifetime of hard work. Without the oversight of CMS and the services of the VA, our most vulnerable, and those who served our country, will be even more at risk.
The impacts of federal funding cuts will hit not just those who work in the JFK Building, but the entire New England region that its offices serve.
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We hope you’ll join us on Monday to support workers over billionaires, and to protest the threat that corporations pose when their influence is allowed to speak over the people. Look for our marching contingent in the parade, learn about the history and possibilities of labor power, and make connections with our local Massachusetts unions!
Photo via Mass 50501 volunteer on May Day
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