
Commemorating a day they’re not often capable of get off themselves, a bunch of Starbucks staff stood on Ewing Avenue Saturday morning getting ready to march within the Labor Day parade on the town’s far Southeast Facet.
“Starbucks is open all of the rattling time,” stated Reed Essex, who works at a Bucktown Starbucks that just lately voted to unionize.
This yr, Labor Day takes on an added poignancy for the Starbucks baristas who lined as much as march within the parade alongside teamsters, iron staff and different staff amid an ongoing combat for higher working circumstances in Starbucks shops. At the least 10 Chicago Starbucks shops have filed for union illustration with Starbucks Employees United since January.
The Chicago Labor Day parade, again for the primary time since 2019 as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, kicked off round midday with music, floats and marchers traversing for blocks within the sizzling solar, the occasion coming within the midst of a flood of union exercise previously yr.
Union illustration filings with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board went up by about 57% between October 2021 and March as in comparison with the earlier fiscal yr, with some pointing to harmful working circumstances over the past two years in the course of the pandemic.
The Starbucks staff stated they’re on their ft all day typically coping with aggressive prospects, poor trip depart insurance policies and grueling schedules. Jasper Sales space-Hodges, a parade marcher who beforehand labored at a Hyde Park Starbucks, stated he labored for 2 years earlier than accruing three trip days.
“I feel it’s so vital,” Sales space-Hodges stated. “Each office ought to have a union.”
Earlier than the parade began, Melisa Lopez draped inexperienced and white streamers, getting ready to march on behalf of the Woman Scouts. Lopez lives within the neighborhood and was excited to see the parade resume after the hiatus. She grew up in a union house — her father was a steelworker.

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“It’s good to be again out, have the whole lot again open,” she stated.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot attended the parade, waving to some group members earlier than the marchers set off.
Members of Roofers Native 11, representing roofers and waterproofers, stood collectively in lime inexperienced shirts, saying they’re proud to commemorate hard-won victories of the Labor Motion.
“Labor constructed this metropolis,” stated Kevin Coleman, a Roofers Native 11 member.
Teams supporting a union-related constitutional modification in Illinois sat on a big float, with indicators asking voters to assist the measure in November. The proposed modification, which might enshrine the fitting to unionize within the structure and ban “right-to-work” legal guidelines, was authorized final yr by Illinois lawmakers to be placed on the poll on Nov. 8.
The Far Southeast Facet, traditionally the house of metal mill staff who labored at vegetation within the space, hosted the primary parade in 1959, in line with organizers. After a decline in 1993, Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza helped revive the custom in 2015.
mabuckley@chicagotribune.com