Calypso and Conscience : Lilt of the Islands and Earnest Exhortations Mark Labor Day Celebrations

Party-goers at a Van Nuys park Monday added a calypso beat to the traditional picnics celebrating Labor Day.

Many of the 450 people attending the Second Annual Caribbean Labor Day Picnic and Celebration at Woodley Avenue Park came originally from Jamaica, Belize and other countries in the West Indies.

Their own customs blended with the usual Labor Day festivities as they added curried chicken to the hot dogs and reggae to the rock music. Instead of the softball played at many other parks, the Caribbean contingent held a cricket match.

Dressed in traditional whites, touring cricket professionals competed in the Claude Worrell Memorial Cricket Match, named for the late founder of the Southern California Cricket Assn., said Edgar Menzie, 62, president of the host organization, the Caribbean International Committee.

The picnic also had its share of the usual Labor Day speeches by local politicians, including the honorary picnic chairman, City Councilman Robert Farrell. But most of those who attended were there to see cricket stars such as Maurice Foster and Lance Gibbs, and later dance to soca, Caribbean pop music with a fast beat.

West Indian immigrants in Los Angeles have adopted the Labor Day holiday as “a chance for a Caribbean weekend,” Menzie said.

Elsewhere, members of unions for truck drivers, communications and auto workers and others gathered at Valley Plaza Park in North Hollywood for a picnic sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, with speeches by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) and Assemblymen Tom Bane (D-Tarzana) and Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda).

“I’ll never forget my union, it’s done too much for me,” said Harold Foster, 69, a retired steam engineer from North Hollywood who still pays dues to Local 501 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, which he joined in 1938.

Vicki Frankovich, president of the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants and one of 5,000 attendants laid off by TWA, urged listeners to boycott the airline. “We want our jobs back and a just contract,” she said.

A Labor Day picnic at Freedom Park in Camarillo, sponsored by Democrats United and Labor United, drew about 250 people, who heard appeals for votes and increased voter registration by 21st Congressional District candidate Gilbert Saldana and state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara).

Ed Albrecht, Ventura County Democratic Central Committee vice chairman, said the Democratic Party is in danger of losing its status as the majority party among registered voters.