La Crosse celebrates Labor Day in the usual way — with a parade and picnic

La Crosse’s Labor Day traditions carried on as usual Monday, with a parade through the north side, followed by a picnic at Copeland Park. 

This year, the organizers chose former La Crosse Mayor John Medinger as the grand marshal, and he appreciated the role from the labor community.

“Labor is important, it’s an important electoral block,”Medinger said. “You need that for the vitality of our economy. Union folks lift up wages for non-union folks, and so they play a good important role in anybody’s community.”

Medinger added that he’s always been a big fan of unions.

His father, Don Medinger, was a union worker at Allis-Chalmers, and also served many years on the La Crosse city council.

“So I kind of grew up in a union environment,” he said. “When I was going to the university, I belonged to a couple of unions, Laborers Local 140, and then, retail clerks.”

Medinger added that he has attended the Labor Day events for about 40 years.

Mike Davis, the president of the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO, said at Monday’s event that labor is having a good year.

“I think everybody’s doing pretty well lately,” Davis said. “Record contracts, high union involvement around town, yeah.”

Davis added that many shops in the area are at 100 percent union involvement.

Besides groups from local unions marching in La Crosse’s parade, Democratic office holders and political candidates for November also took part, including US House candidate Rebecca Cooke, 32nd District Wisconsin state Sen Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), Assembly Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) and Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska), and Assembly nominee Tara Johnson of the 96th district.