In a Labor Day tradition that dates back decades, union workers from all over Southern California gathered in the portside, working class community of Wilmington for a parade and a park picnic.
Between the riders on floats and in cars, the walkers with union signs, and high school marching bands, more than 1,000 people participated in the parade up Avalon Boulevard.
"It's fun to see the marching bands and all the people," said Paul DeGuzman, as he stood on the sidewalk with wife, Jenice, watching their son, Kai, march by playing the bass drum for the Carson High School Band.
"Unions do good things," Jenice DeGuzman said.
Besides the bands, parade crowd pleasers included local lowriders with hydraulic lifts powerful enough to propel vintage Detroit iron off the asphalt.
"This is a beautiful day in Wilmington where everybody comes together like family," said a lowrider driver and warehouse worker who identified himself as John.
Some stretches of the parade route showed more participants than spectators, to the surprise of a visitor from Norwalk who identified herself as Linda.
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"I hope it gets noticed by more people," Linda said.
The parade ended at Banning Park, where an array of grills were setup to barbecue lunch.
"We get to come out here and celebrate," said Kyla Patterson, whose father, Kyle, is a carpenter represented by Local 1506.
"Take a look around at all the blue collar here," said Patterson. "This is labor — the people that build the buildings."
There were a few signs for Hillary Clinton, a nod to Bernie Sanders, and T-shirts for Kamala Harris, but not all that much politicking in a presidential election year.
In some respects, it's been a good year for organized labor, achieving a goal when both Los Angeles City and County approved raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years.
But among labor leaders, concern remains over the long-term shift of the American economy away from heavy industry and manufacturing where unions established themselves more than a century ago.
Since the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of union representation in 1983, the percentage of represented wage and salary employees has dropped nearly in half, from 20.1 percent to 11.1 percent last year.
At the same time, even with population growth, the total number of union represented employees has dropped from 17.7 million to 14.8 million.
