Thousands of union members and their families gathered amid marching bands and classic cars for Wilmington's Labor Day parade, where they voiced concerns that automation is cutting off livelihoods and the rising cost of living is putting more pressure on their communities.
Here's what to know
According to the Los Angeles Times, the parade and rally drew port workers, tradespeople, teachers, performers, and grocery workers, as politicians moved through the crowd. For many in attendance, the holiday event was more of a warning about a future they see as more precarious, less affordable, and less fair.
Jesse Munoz, a 63-year-old longshoreman and member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 13, told the Times that automation had erased upward of 2,000 jobs over roughly 15 years.
"The concern is the future," Munoz said. "I have a son that's on a list to become a casual worker, which is a worker that will accumulate his hours, and then hopefully within time become a regular member of the union. But the future is not as promising as we would like it to be."
Even with those worries, union membership has improved somewhat nationwide. Citing data collected by the pro-labor American Prospect, the Times reported that 463,000 more workers were represented by unions in 2025, nudging union density from 9.9% to 10.0%.
Those gains were concentrated mostly in public employment, while the private-sector union density held at 5.9%, leaving little change in the industries where automation and outsourcing can hit hardest.
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More background
When good-paying union work disappears, communities can lose tax revenue, retirement stability, and the ability for longtime residents to remain in the neighborhoods they helped build.
Munoz said, "If you eliminate the workforce, you eliminate taxes. You eliminate pensions."
Affordability, especially housing, came up repeatedly. A master carpenter told the Times, "We build the houses, but we can't buy them," and went on to say a Norwalk home his father bought in 1977 for under $50,000 would now fetch nearly $1 million.
According to the Times, ILWU Local 56 — the ship scalers union — has taken on wildfire cleanup work and hazardous waste removal tied to the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights, raising workplace safety concerns with many hoping to move up in the trade.
What's being done?
Speakers at the event cast the issue as a policy fight, arguing that workers need stronger support as technology reshapes the economy.
Among the elected officials there, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told attendees, "L.A. is a labor city, and I am there with you 100%."
Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman said, "automation, AI, are taking away jobs all over this country, and it is up to us to step up and fight back, and that is why I'm here to stand alongside the workers of this country."
Mark Ramos, chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Western States Council and UFCW Local 1428, said one ongoing fight is keeping self-serve checkout stations manageable for the employees overseeing them.
Across North America and beyond, workers are pushing for job protections, safer transitions, and more say in what comes next. At Tesla, factory employees described upcoming mandatory time off alongside cuts to hours and paychecks. In Canada, unions vowed to tackle climate change without abandoning blue-collar workers' jobs. In Selma, residents pushed back against a data center near sacred civil rights ground.
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