Burgers sizzling on the grill helped serve the hundreds who attended the 121st annual Labor Day Picnic at Riverside Park organized by the Western Iowa Labor Federation.
Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott handed out condiments and compliments on the weather.
"It's good to get together on Labor Day," Scott said. "It's a day to celebrate labor, and it's fun to see so many people out here today — and we have a great day for it."
Even though a crowd attended the annual event to honor Labor Day, former union council leader Jim Marshall said it was half the size of previous years.
"The last 45 years — I've been here. The attendance isn't like what it used to be, but there's quite a few people here today,” Marshall said. "But I can remember we had anywhere from 1,000-1,500 people here. And one year, we had a presidential candidate and attracted about 6,000 people."
This year, the group heard from local and regional political candidates, including Ryan Melton, who is running for Congress in Iowa's 4th District.
"Do you know what Randy Feenstra’s record is with the AFL-CIO?" Melton asked. "Our current incumbent congressman votes against workers 93% of the time.”
Leo Kanne is the president of one of western Iowa’s biggest labor unions, UFCW Local 222. The organization represents thousands of workers in packing plants, manufacturing and health care — 32 contracts in all.
"I think people are more excited about labor unions. We've been doing some good things. We just need to probably work on lobbying and get some laws that favor us a little better,” Kanne said.
He admits unions have lost power over the years, but said there has been a resurgence, including a recent merger with a similar union in Nebraska and a local increase of 800 new union members.
"I’m glad that our country decided a long time ago to celebrate workers and laborers in this country," Kanne said. "It really speaks volumes for what people do and how they support the country, you know, produce the food that we eat and the health care, how they take care of people when they're sick.”
Kanne said there is more interest in unions due to the value of contracts, wage increases, benefits and concerns about child labor regulations.
“We're getting sick leave built into our contracts, which is a big thing for people,” Kanne said. "But I think a lot of it is the good work that the reps and stewards have done to represent people — and not just our union, but every union across the country. We seem to work a lot harder than I think we used to.”
UFCW Local 222 Secretary-Treasurer and former nurse, Jaylee Hurst, said it’s time for workers to take their power back as government leaders have weakened unions over the years.
"Every law and regulation that was written is generally because somebody was hurt, and I really do not want to see those rollbacks happen,” Hurst said. "I think we have a lot more work to do. And so watching the membership strengthen and get ready for this fight — I'm excited.”
Hurst said the union recently helped organize packing plant sanitation workers and pushed to keep minors from working in packing plants.
"We really felt that it was going to be dangerous to have workers under the age of 18 working in plants that work with machinery that is designed to tear and cut flesh,” Hurst said. "Because of the work that we did, and because of the noise that we made, we were able to stop that so that we do not have children in these plants. And we are working very hard to make sure that it stays that way, and that organizing the sanitation crew at some of these plants is helping prevent some of that child labor as well.”
