Members of the Rossiter family assembled from coast to coast, with some spots in between, to honor a family member on a special day. Along with feting their Highland Park relative, they found time to send a message to President Donald Trump, siding with workers over billionaires.
Laura Rossiter of San Francisco stood in front of Highland Park City Hall on Monday with relatives and more than 500 others holding signs with messages for cars passing them on St. Johns Avenue.
“I value people who work for a living,” Rossiter said. “Workers over billionaires. Our family is here from all over — San Francisco, Ithaca (New York), Boston and Chicago. These are our family values. Our family is very active.”
The Rossiters were among more than 1,100 people in Lake County on Labor Day sending a message of solidarity to workers, and a protest to Trump, in rallies Monday in Highland Park, Libertyville and Buffalo Grove.
“Workers have to have a say,” Catherine Rossiter, who came to Highland Park for the weekend from Ithaca, N.Y., said. “This is what I want to do with my family on this day. Labor Day is about honoring workers.”
People like Peg Carlson of Lake Forest, Jami Jacobs of Deerfield and Kimberly Laughlin of Highland Park brought their children to the demonstration. Jacobs and Laughlin stood with their sons holding signs.
“This is about my future,” Riley Laughlin, a Highland Park seventh grader said. “It’s about our democracy and our country.”
Kimberly Lauighlin, Riley’s mother, said her son is the fourth generation of her family to take a stand for democracy and working families. Her grandfather immigrated from Italy in the early 1900s pushing for better conditions and treatment for coal miners.
“If not now, when?” Kimberly Lauglin said about why the five of them were there. “We honor this day for all of those who fought for workers throughout the years.”
Ethan Jacobs, a Deerfield High School sophomore, said for him demonstrating on Labor Day went further than supporting working people. He is unhappy with the direction the Trump administration is taking the U.S.
“I’m here because what the president is doing is wrong,” Ethan Jacobs said. “I don’t want Trump’s policies. I believe in equal pay for equal work, and everyone should be paid a fair wage.”
“It’s important to be here and make a change,” added Ben Jacobs, an eighth grader and Ethan’s brother.
Carlson said she brought her daughter, Maev, 6, to the event because everyone should “stand up for democracy.” She is concerned about the president’s actions as well as those of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as indicated on a sign they held.
“They are ripping up the Constitution,” Carlson said. “This is not what we stand for.”
Both State Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Lake Forest, state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, and state Rep. Tracy Katz Muhl, D-Northbrook, talked to the crowd toward the end of the hourlong event. Morgan talked of lessons learned from his parents about the value of work.
“My parents were public school teachers in the inner city of Chicago who taught kids what they needed to know for their future,” Morgan said.
“Our country was built, literally and figuratively, by the men and women who rise each day and go to work,” Morrison said. “Their trip that morning may be to the bus yard, to a broken water main, or to the site of a new apartment building where neighbors will soon live.”
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In Libertyville, Randy Harniker said more than 450 people came to what he described as a “peaceful, well-organized” event near Greentree Parkway and Milwaukee Avenue. The crowd stretched for approximately half a block.
“There was a lot of good energy,” Harniker, the event organizer, said. “When working families succeed, our communities succeed and our democracy is stronger,” he added in his speech to the crowd. “We are here to demand a government that works for the many — not the wealthy few.”
Matt Mutchkowski, an official with the American Federation of Government Workers and the Waukegan Township Democratic chair, said at the rally that billionaires want to divide the working class and increase their wealth at the workers’ expense. Unions can make a difference.
“Unions helped fund the civil rights movement, unions fought for women to have equal pay in the workplace and for an end to sexual harassment,” Mutchkowski said. “Unions fought for LGBTQ protections in union contracts before equal marriage was passed,”
In Buffalo Grove, where more than 200 people demonstrated against Trump’s policies and for working people on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store in Buffalo Grove, event organizer Carolyn Pinta said a twist was added.
“We asked people going into the store to buy food to be donated to people who are food-deprived,” Pinta said. “We filled up a whole car with food donations for a local food pantry.”
As the group stood on the sidewalk in front of the store, Pinta said cars driving by honked in support of the messages on their signs except for one that blared loud music. Continued demonstrations are necessary now with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ready to increase its local presence, she said.
“Things are getting crazier and crazier,” Pinta said. “In Illinois, Trump said Chicago is going to be next. He’s going to send ICE and troops this week. Our governor said there will be a response.”