Offended by aggressive tariffs and President Trump's denigrating remarks about Canada, some electricians from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 58 in Detroit, have invited Canadian workers across the river to march with them in the Labor Day Parade on Monday in Corktown as a gesture of solidarity between the two nations.
"We have an insane billionaire who is on the verge of tanking both economies," said electrician Kevin Mackey, an executive board member of Local 58, who is involved in reaching out to the Canadian brethren. "We want people in labor to come, not just union workers."
"We're trying to say, if we work for a living here in the United States it doesn't mean we're taking marching orders from Trump's people, telling us who our enemies are."
Mackey said the electricians have invited sister union, IBEW Local 773 in Windsor, to meet at the parking lot of Local 58 at 1358 Abbott St., which is a staging area for different unions for the annual Labor Day Parade. From there, they'll march together in the parade, which begins at 9 a.m. The parade goes north on Trumbull and west on Michigan Avenue, with the final destination being Roosevelt Park, in front of Michigan Central train station.
Byron Osbern, business agent for Local 58, said the gesture is "how we show solidarity. Tariffs don't do anything good for our material, for our work, for our contracting, our our ability to stay employed, to get more jobs. They drive up the cost of building materials. We're seeing it as as economic warfare against the proletariat."
"So we're going to unite with our brothers in Windsor. We united with them when we built the Gordie Howe Bridge, we've united with them in times past when they needed workers to man their projects."
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Art work produced for IBEW Local 58
Karl Lovett, business manager and financial secretary of IBEW Local 773 in Windsor, said he's coming with a small contingent of people to show solidarity. He said for the first time in 40 years he won't be marching in the Windsor Labor Day Parade, which he's participated in since he was 12.
"When they asked me to come to Detroit to be a guest to walk in their parade I said 100 percent," he said. "With U.S. politics -- I mean one person in particular -- is pitting us more as enemies than allies."
"It seems like we're so distant now with all the barriers that are put up. I tell people all the time, 'that's the Detroit River not the Rio Grande.'"
He said he wants to show his members that it's OK to come to Detroit and shop, and the Americans are still friends.
"There's so many people now who do not want to go to the U.S. to spend money just because all the rhetoric and things that are going on. I think if I show my face (in Detroit) it might it entice some of them to start returning to the U.S."
"I know people who won't go to their properties in Florida just because of everything that's happened with the government," Lovett said. "And it's just too bad. We hear from our American friends all the time, they apologize for what's happening."
https://deadlinedetroit.com/articles/35035/union_electricians_in_detroit_invite_canadian_workers_to_march_in_labor_day_parade_in_act_of_solidarity