Speeches and Pickets Mark Orange County Labor Day Festivities

On their annual day of solidarity, union members in Orange County were banding together both in protest and celebration Monday as the county’s Central Labor Council threw a Labor Day picnic in Fountain Valley and demonstrators rallied at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

The Orange County Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO kicked off what it was billing as its first annual picnic with about 500 participants at Mile Square Regional Park. At the picnic site, Mary Yunt, council secretary-treasurer, conceded that union members are still very much a struggling minority in the county’s work force.

15% of Work Force

“We only have about 15% of the work force in unions in Orange County,” said Yunt, as she stood in front of a row of colorful game booths set up by union locals for the picnic.

“In Los Angeles County, about 24% of the work force is in unions, and it’s about 19% in both Riverside County and San Bernardino County. But still we represent a lot of people in this county. There are 150 unions here, and we know that about 120,000 union members live in Orange County.”

Yunt added that the picnic was a way for the “union family” to get together and get to know each other better. And she said the picnic shows that labor is united and determined to keep growing in Orange County.

A few miles north, organized labor was involved in a tense rally against the Disneyland Hotel management in the longest-running current labor dispute in the county. There was no disturbance, but hotel officials summoned Anaheim police to warn the demonstrators against obstructing vehicles or pedestrian traffic.

Local 681 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union has been directing a so-called “work-and-walk” boycott against the hotel for the last six months. “Our members complete their work shift inside the hotel, then they come out and walk the picket line,” said Steve Beyer, administrative assistant to the president of the local. The pickets urge people not to come onto the hotel grounds.

The dispute erupted March 1 after the hotel and union were unable to work out a new contract. Ric Morris, assistant vice president for labor relations of the Wrather Corp., which owns the hotel, said management announced its “last, best and final” offer March 1. That offer, he said, included an average 7% pay raise for the next four years, an additional paid holiday and a 5% increase in health and welfare benefits.

Beyer said that the offer was unacceptable and that the union was angry at the hotel’s decision to break off negotiations.

“I don’t want to discuss specifics we’re calling for now because we are going back to the table on Sept. 18,” Beyer said. “But what the hotel was offering included wage freezes and increases in the workload.”

As 28 people marched with signs, balloons and American flags in front of the hotel Monday, some hotel officials stood outside and watched.

“What you see are mostly union employees, not hotel workers,” Morris said. He added:”Six months ago, you would have seen about 150 out there. Now they’re down to this small number, even though it’s a holiday and many could have participated. I’d say you’re seeing the death rattle of this group. They’re losing support.”

Morris’ assertion was quickly denied by Beyer, who was marching with the protesters.

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Beyer said. “Almost all of the people taking part are hotel workers. The real situation is that our boycott is hurting the hotel badly. Guests don’t want to cross our picket line.”

Beyer conceded that daily demonstrations have been small, but he said they’ve been effective. “People are not coming to the Disneyland Hotel,” he contended.

Morris scoffed at Beyer’s assertion. “If they’re hurting us, other hotels should be as well hurt,” he said. “Our hotel occupancy is running in the mid-80% bracket. We’re doing more business than any hotel in Orange County.”

At the picnic site, Yunt said that the hotel workers are examples of union members fighting to retain benefits and reforms that organized labor has produced for the American work force.

Yunt added:”Labor has been in the forefront of all the people’s kind of legislation--the social legislation. It was labor that pushed for the public schools, for the eight-hour day, for abolishing child labor. I think the thing people really should think about on Labor Day is that these things that labor has won for them, they’re not going to stay unless we stay together.”

At Labor Day events across the country, the sentiments were sometimes more politically partisan.

“Our job is to mobilize the dissatisfaction with the Reagan Administration . . . and thus to turn it into a collective vote against Reagan’s political allies at the polls,” said Owen Bieber, president of the United Auto Workers, at a Detroit rally.

“We must elect political leaders who will substitute common sense, prudent planning and social compassion for the ruinous policies that have given us record trade and budget deficits, while elevating corporate and individual greed along with reckless militarism as prevailing national values,” he added.

Approximately, 165,000 people attended two Labor Day rallies in Detroit, and 40,000 people, headed by AFL-CIO Presdient Lane Kirkland, marched in Chicago.

But New York City, which inaugurated its Labor Day parades in 1882, twelve years before federal legislation was passed designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day, had no parade this year.

“It was felt that the members who participate and the people who do the work would welcome a day off,” said Thomas Van Arsdale, head of the New York Labor Council.

In Los Angeles, the Catholic Labor Institute held its 40th consecutive Labor Day breakfast. A bevy of Democratic politicians, including U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, who are running for reelection, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, making a bid to unseat Gov. George Deukmejian, were among the featured speakers.