Union float to reflect America

'Mt. Labormore' of average Joes

One of the first things artists David Hatch and Melanie Devlin did after receiving orders last month to create the labor movement's first float for an inaugural parade was to take a paring knife and chainsaw to carve a row of four heads from a large chunk of foam.

But when word reached the leaders of Washington labor unions that the float would feature the four presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore, they insisted on less Americana and more attention to working people.

There will be no shortage of Americana during Barack Obama's inauguration, but only one float is likely to deliver as insistently political a message as the 24-foot rolling confection completed in a warehouse here Friday.

"For everyone in the labor movement, this is a wonderful historic opportunity," said Chris Chafe, executive director of the Change to Win coalition, which is partnering on the float with the AFL-CIO and National Education Association. "It's nice to be acknowledged as an active part of American life."

With new orders, Hatch and Devlin turned the four Mt. Rushmore chief executives into proletarians: Lincoln became a bearded welder, Roosevelt a redheaded doctor, Jefferson a cook standing at alert, and Washington a construction worker with vaguely aboriginal features.

"We're calling it Mt. Labormore," said Hatch. "They were pretty ardent about just leaving it the American people - average Joes."

Four years after a tempestuous rift - five large unions led by the Service Employees International Union, quit the AFL-CIO to create Change to Win - the movement has found itself uncommonly united.

Unions played key roles on behalf of Obama and other Democratic candidates in November and now are trying to leverage that clout as they push Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize. Once rivalrous elements of labor are working so closely that there are rumors that the Change to Win's renegade unions may be negotiating to rejoin the AFL.

"There's a high degree of collaboration and strategic planning," said Chafe. "It's far too early to speculate what the structural outcome will look like . . . There's going to be ongoing unity within the labor movement."

The challenge of putting that agenda on wheels fell to Proof Productions, a union scenic shop that specializes in theater stage sets and has long contributed floats to local Labor Day parades. Owner Stephen McEntee rented a yellow Penske flatbed truck and wrapped its cab in vinyl stars and stripes with the slogan, "Honoring America's Workers." A large wooden panel would be erected in the bed, perforated by five rotating stars each preaching part of labor's legislative agenda, including "Health Care For All," "Good Jobs Green Jobs" and an explicit "Free Choice Act."

Typically, Proof designs floats for optimum visibility between 50 and 100 feet. After determining that the president's riser was likely to be 150 feet from the float when it passed, McEntee's crew went outside, measured 200 feet with a laser, ensured Obama would be able to read the slogans.

"There's some concern that has popped up here and there that EFCA might not be high on the agenda right out of the box," said Jonathan Tasini, executive director of the Labor Research Association, using the acronym for the Employee Free Choice Act.

The float was to be reassembled last night by local stagehands so that a local teamster could drive it down the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route, surrounded by 250 union members.

Afterward, the float will be taken apart again, and its components returned to New Jersey. "For a future use to be determined," said McEntee. "I would think the AFL-CIO would want to use it in a Labor Day Parade."