Sep. 1--When pro-union performers take the stage for today's "Take Back Labor Day" festival on Harriet Island -- just downhill from the Republican National Convention -- latter-day likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez won't be strumming solidarity songs alongside them.

(Disgraced former U.S. Sen. John Edwards -- once a confirmed headliner -- won't be there either, but that's another story.)

The music of the workers' agenda will be delivered with a little more urban street flavor and rocker angst by national acts like Mos Def, a popular hip-hop artist, and guitarist Tom Morello, a member of the ever-indignant political rap-metal band, Rage Against the Machine.

Also slated to perform is a breakout Twin Cities hip-hop duo, Atmosphere, and California rappers, The Pharcyde.

The festival will be held 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at the Harriet Island Regional Park along the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul. Main stage acts begin at 3 p.m.; tickets were being sold for $10 through Ticketmaster, or $15 at the door.

If the musical line-up feels like it's designed more for edgy youth, minorities and the urban chic than the gray-haired activists of the 1960s and 1970s, that's no accident. Labor groups are making no secret of their open courtship of young people, women and people of color -- a trifecta they almost desperately depend on to increase their depleted and divided ranks.

Labor organizers have hosted a Harriet Island picnic annually. In

years past, the event has been cancelled due to dwindling attendance.

Today's "Take Back Labor Day" festival isn't brought to workers courtesy of the AFL-CIO. Instead, it's organized by the Service Employees International Union, which splintered from the country's most prominent union federation in 2005. With nearly 2 million members, the SEIU bills itself as the fastest-growing union in North America.

On the opening day of the RNC, some are sure to relish the contrast between the socially conscious riffs and growls of youth culture and the more staid, patriotic tones inside the convention. On everything from free trade to wages, organized labor has continuously butted heads with the GOP.

But have no fear, traditionalists: labor is still at least a little bit folksy, and a little bit rock-and-roll.

Nope, Peter, Paul and Mary are not on the docket. On the other hand, rock-country troubadour Steve Earle and wife Alison Moorer are, as is folk-punk-pop artist Billy Bragg, who has been singing about the joys and struggles of the five-day workweek for 30 years.