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Lead by Parade Marshals Patrick LoPresti and Anthony Caifano, president and secretary-treasurer of the 125-year old Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local 1, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), marchers organized at the American Labor Museum and followed a route to the Great Falls Historic District Festival.
The American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark is the former home of Pietro Botto, an Italian immigrant and silk mill worker, and his wife Maria. The house at 83 Norwood St. played a central role in the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike.
Years of declining wages, poor working conditions, and long work days, coupled with an increasing reliance on women and children laborers, came to a head in the winter of 1913, when mill workers began an work-stoppage aimed an an 8-hour work day. The strike lasted through the summer of 1913 and more than 1,850 workers were arrested.
Organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World — including “The Jungle” author Upton Sinclair — addressed 20,000 striking Paterson mill workers from the Botto House’s second-story balcony.
A little more than a century later, marchers numbered a mere fraction of the strikers, but their progressive social mindset was still represented. One of the largest groups of marchers this year were supporters of Democratic Presidential Primary Candidate Bernie Sanders.
Laurie Mauro, of NJ for Bernie Sanders, estimated close to 50 Sanders supporters organized to march, but “talking to other organizations marching, just about everyone, regardless of whose banner they were walking behind, was for Bernie.”
Unlike at the Rutherford Labor Day Street Fair, which kicks off the November election season, Sanders was the only politician represented at the parade.
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