DECATUR - Rick Tucker's 15 percent raise vanished into soaring health insurance costs, and then some.

"My paycheck is $38 a week less than it was before," said Tucker, a street department employee, as he waited Monday to march in the city's annual Labor Day parade, hosted by Decatur Trades & Labor Assembly AFL-CIO. This year's theme was "Changing For a Better Tomorrow."

Dozens of unions marched in the parade, with members wearing identical T-shirts with their union's logo, and most carried signs bearing messages such as "Union Yes!" and "Workers' rights begin at the ballot box."

Tucker and fellow members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees marched behind a 1929 Model A and a 1933 Plymouth coupe, both cars bearing signs stating that municipal employees are the only ones not allowed to use official vehicles in the parade and urging spectators to call the city manager's office to protest.

Especially on a day devoted to working men and women, a better tomorrow is what the AFSCME members want, said Jeff Bigelow, regional director of Council 31.

"The lowest-paid city workers are being required to pay more (for health coverage) than the highest-paid city workers, and management, instead of coming to the bargaining table and negotiating, has imposed these terms on us," Bigelow said. "Today, on Labor Day, we're supposed to be celebrating our victories and pointing ourselves toward the future, yet here we are stuck in the past with people imposing things rather than negotiating."

Every other group, he said, had company trucks or other vehicles symbolizing their work, while the city workers had to provide their own. The classic cars were striking, said Local 268 President Jerd Morstatter, but no substitute for work vehicles.

The workers in the group are police dispatchers, street department workers, neighborhood inspectors, water department workers, people who repair traffic lights and forestry personnel who trim trees.

"The people who do the lowest-paid, dirtiest work," Bigelow said.

Last year, the city said it discontinued the practice of allowing the use of city vehicles, such as street sweepers, during parades after a vehicle was wrecked while leaving a parade. City workers took issue with the policy during last year's Labor Day parade, as well.

Grand Marshal Bob Sampson, Macon County Board chairman, said he was delighted and honored to follow in the footsteps of previous grand marshals such as the Rev. Martin Mangan, who was known for his support of labor and was the first recipient of the Father Martin Mangan Humanitarian Award soon before his death in 2001.

"Labor Day honors working men and women, and it's an important American holiday," Sampson said. "It recognizes the contributions of working men and women to America, which is really what has made this country fundamentally great and fundamentally strong over its existence."

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