Sep. 5—MANNINGTON — More than 500 guests walked through light drizzling rain Sunday to attend a picnic honoring workers and their families.

Sponsored by the Marion County AFL-CIO, United Mine Workers of America union and Marion County Democrats, the Annual Labor Day Picnic at Hough Park returned with gusto after a two-year absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keynote speaker UMWA President Cecil Roberts said corporations get 364 days a year and labor gets one day a year — Labor Day.

"It's important that we come out and celebrate on our day because working class people built this country, working class people keep it going now, working class people fight all the wars, so I think working class people should come out and celebrate these facts," Roberts said.

Roberts said labor has a long history of being under attack in the U.S. despite many laws that helped labor unions advance.

He said the labor movement finally earned a voice in 1935 when Sen. Robert F. Wagner of New York pushed for the passage of the Wagner Act, which established the federal government as the regulator and arbiter of labor relations in the U.S. The law also established the National Labor Relations Board.

"After the passage of the Wagner Act, we became the largest union in the world after we had a legal right to unionize," Roberts said. "But we didn't sit on our hands and say, 'Well, we're great, we beat the issue.' John L. Lewis said, 'Everybody deserves a union.'"

After the Wagner Act became law, the U.S. labor movement organized auto workers, rubber and textile workers, steel workers and communications workers and "organized 3 million people in a few years" using funds from the UMWA.

"That's why we have the middle class today," Roberts said. "However, in 1947, the corporations, the powers that be, the rich people said, 'Well, we can't have this' and passed the Taft-Hartley Act, taking many of those rights to organize away from us and it's been that way since 1947."

According to a recent Gallup poll, 12% of U.S. workers who are employed full or part time belong to a labor union, and 16% of U.S. adults live in a union household.

Roberts said Sunday's event was a great way to celebrate labor's past while focusing on a better future. He praised the recent announcement that electric vehicle manufacturer SPARKZ is going to convert a shuttered glass factory in Taylor County into a battery plant and hire 350 former coal miners as part of an agreement with the UMWA.

"We're wanting to bring those jobs here, build those manufacturing plants here, at union wages, expand the middle class and we're going to represent those workers at the battery plant," Roberts said. "We're extremely excited about that."

While the miners' union headlined Sunday's event, the picnic also featured speakers from other labor groups. Fred Albert, of Charleston, president of American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia teachers' union, urged guests to support public education now more than ever because it is under attack across the U.S.

"These are our people that we are like-minded with. They support us in our efforts as our public schools and it's a time to come together and appreciate one another and thank each other for the work that they do in the labor movement," Albert said.

Albert said America needs public schools because "that is where democracy begins."

"Our public schools are the backbone of our communities and they're the great equalizer. They're the ones that bring us all a good, decent work force and we need our public schools," Albert said.

Like Roberts, Sen. Mike Caputo, D-13, who also serves as a vice president of the West Virginia AFL-CIO and former UMWA District 31 international vice president, said labor built the middle class, and Sunday's picnic was a great way to thank workers everywhere.

"They created a lifestyle that allowed families to afford to raise children and send them to college and even if you're a non-union worker, you should thank a union member for your wages because we set the standard of living in this country," Caputo said. "We set aside one day a year to remember that and to encourage people to organize and join the union and let's make this a better-working America."

Reach Eric Cravey at 304-367-2523.