Political Undertones Apparent At Annual Labor Day Parade
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Labor Day is a day to honor American workers and economic achievements.
Pittsburgh always celebrates with one of the largest Labor Day parades around, but this year's event had more political undertones than in years' past.
Only one candidate for governor attended Monday morning's Labor Day Parade and that's because only one was invited.
Democrat Tom Wolf was the lone invitee, but he wouldn't jump into the controversy.
Wolf worked the crowd as the parade wound its way down the Boulevard of the Allies toward the reviewing stand at Stanwix Street.
Wolf claims that his policies, if elected governor, would more closely in line with the needs and aspirations of working families. He would not get I to the issue of his citation to the parade and the decision of parade organizers to not invite republican incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett.
"I'm not part of the organizing group. I was invited, I came. My Jeep is also here. I was paying tribute to the people who made my Jeep, by the way," Wolf said.
However, Allegheny County Labor Council President Jack Shea was not so diplomatic.
"We can't have somebody, who for 364 days a year, has done nothing but try to destroy labor and the work that their members do and then one day a year he wants to march with labor? There's a word for that. And everybody can fill in the blank. He wasn't invited the last three years and that's status quo and 98 percent of all of labor in Pennsylvania is for Tom Wolf," Shea said.
Gov. Corbett is rallied with laborers and boilermakers in the afternoon.
"I'm disappointed in what the labor council chairman had to say," Corbett said. "But I believe in the guys like Phil Ameris right here who understand that we've been working on behalf of all the people of Pennsylvania."
"When it comes to the issue of labor," he added, "it seems to me I'm the only one that ever belonged to a labor union when I was in PSEA many, many years ago as a teacher."
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