Perhaps City Council president Randy Radtke should simultaneously invite those political opponents of labor, while encouraging residents to make them "feel right at home" marching with union members past and present.
From WSAW, WAOW,
Mayor Jim Tipple says because the city of Wausau pays for a portion of the parade's costs including liability insurance, the event is required to be non-partisan. "The city does sponsor the parade we have staff that close streets put up barricades police protection,' says Tipple. And while Mayor Tipple is confident the conflict will be resolved in a few days, he hopes there won't be any protests on Labor Day.
Is the parade about general labor, or was it created by unions to celebrate labor rights. Republican Lawmakers are banned from a celebration that dates back to the early 1880's.
"Several union leaders in the New York City area proposed that there be a day set aside to mark the accomplishments of organized labor."
UWMC Professor James Lorence said the focus was not on politics. "Any time you put people in the street to show what kind of power they have or how many feet can put on the street, that's indirectly a political statement"
Nancy Tabaka-Stencil said “Labor day started with the unions and I personally don't belong to a union but I look at the benefits that they have done for us through the years."
Well if they're using taxpayer money they can't exclude people then. I thought it was a privately paid-for parade. Then the mayor is right and my previous arguments on this were wrong. You can't exclude people from a city-sponsored function.
ReplyDeleteReplying to Annie K: All parades on public rights of way use tax dollars, because they're using public facilities. But would the mayor insist that a tea party rally with a parade permit include Democrats, or a anti-abortion parade include pro-choice marchers, or that a neo-Nazi parade include anti-Nazis? The mayor's reference to using tax dollars is red herring. The Labor Day parade isn't "city-sponsored"; it's a labor organization event. The city merely permits the parade and picks up the usual cost of taking care of public property, like it does when you drive down a street.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - When you drive down a city street the city doesn't pay for your insurance. When you run an event, the city always charges the event for security and if it provides set up or clean up, they charge for that. In my experience they didn't charge for insurance, they just required proof that you had purchased appropriate coverage for the event privately. In fact for one organization we were considered co-sponsers of a parade specifically because we took care of the insurance.
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