Cookouts, parties at breweries and restaurants and free admission to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.

Those are among the events planned for Labor Day in Richmond on Monday, Sept. 4, according to websites listing events.

Missing from the list are parades, celebrations or other activities related to working people and labor unions — even though this holiday was created to celebrate workers.

Despite new unions sprouting at City Hall and among employees of Richmond Public Schools, the unions and their new membership are not offering any public activities.

Nor is the city, members of the governing body, City Council, or the School Board hosting anything, despite their support for the new unions.

A Free Press request for comment on whether the 2023 Labor Day would be more meaningful as a result of the formation of these new unions did not draw a single response from union members or their leaders.

“This is still not a union town,” said one labor organizer in seeking to explain the silence and the dearth of activities for a holiday that dates to 1882 and has now come to symbolize the end of summer rather than a salute to working people.

As best can be determined, it has been 137 years since Richmond has had a big Labor Day parade. In 1886, the growing Knights of Labor held its national convention in the city and a parade of working people was one of the activities.

At the time, the Knights allowed Black workers to become members, though in separate unions from white workers. That tolerance, though, evaporated within a few years.

Labor solidarity has been harder to celebrate for a number of reasons, including the struggles of Black workers to gain equal pay and positions with white counterparts in the face of white unionist opposition.

It took lawsuits and passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to begin to end that exclusion.

Unions themselves have faced serious challenges since the state adopted right-to-work legislation that allows workers to opt-out of having union dues taken out of their pay.

During election seasons, unions are well known for their efforts to help elect supportive candidates in Virginia. And unions have held strikes in the state.

Still, most of the unions in this city and around the state have avoided public, in-your-face celebrations given the backlash and criticism that can generate.

Based on the list of activities for Monday, unions are choosing to be discrete.