Putting labour first every day!
This year’s Labour Day is now history but while memories
of last weekend’s picnics and parades to mark the occasion are still
fresh in everyone’s minds it’s worthwhile reinforcing the importance of
this annual holiday.
We’ve traveled a long road since Apr. 15 1872 when the Toronto Trades Assembly organized a demonstration in support of 24 leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union who had been jailed for demanding a 58-hour work week.
The event, which is now recognized as the first ‘day of labour’ in North America, attracted 10,000 spectators and triggered a similar demonstration in Ottawa later that year. That demonstration in turn eventually led Sir John A. MacDonald to adopt legislation that eliminated a law that decreed trade unions were criminal conspiracies.
I cite that bit of history as a timely reminder that organized labour has been, and always will be, a powerful force for change in society. As we are fond of reminding everyone, organized labour brought you the weekend!
But organized labour has achieved much more. Imagine what our world might look like were it not for the positive changes forced by labour on conditions of employment, health and safety laws, equity and a host of other social and economic achievements.
Organized working people, through united action, have been the beneficiaries of this struggle. The gains did not stop there. These efforts extended beyond unions to all workers, their families and communities. As public sector workers we see the direct connections between maintaining quality jobs and sustaining healthy and safe communities. Think, again of just some of the services Ontario depends on like hospitals, educational institutions, community social services, liquor stores and public health and safety services.
With this legacy of accomplishment it would be easy to now simply try to hand onto what we have already achieved. This would end in our demise. Our opponents in government, in the private sector, among the business class and their acolytes in the media will simply continue their sustained attack.
Progress, as defined by our opponents is reduced wages and benefits, cuts to health and safety standards, weakened contracts, obstacles to organizing rights and a widened economic gap between working people and Ontario’s elite. In a world marked by scarcity, they seek to gain through a decline in the living standards of working people.
How do we respond to these threats? We respond by making every day a day spent defending the rights we have gained for ourselves, our families and our communities.
A good example of this confronts us today with the McGuinty government’s effort to impose a wage freeze on collective bargaining. The easy way out would be to acquiesce in the name of “sharing responsibility” for balancing the provincial budget.
To do so implies that organized public sector employees – indeed, workers everywhere – are part of the problem. We’re not. We did not cause the global fiscal meltdown that led governments to run operating deficits. We are not the ones calling for cuts to the public services that benefit the majority of Ontario families. We are not the recipients of corporate tax cuts that can by definition only benefit the business elite.
The numbers speak for themselves. Simply put, to directly connect the two ends in the government plan, we are being pressured to cut our incomes by agreeing to a wage freeze to pay for corporate tax cuts.
Our response as organized labour must be to dig in our heels not only to defend but expand our historic achievements. We can do this by growing the ranks of unionized workers; mobilizing all union members and by building solidarity with other progressive groups.
We must remind the public at large that government plans and actions must meet the test of fairness when measured against the needs of the majority of people in Ontario. Community needs can best be addressed through strengthened public services, not tax cuts.
Instead of looking inward with dread we must seek opportunities and use inner strength and collective action to continue our record of achievement. With inspiration and commitment we will move as OPSEU, always forward!
In the spirit of the Toronto Typographical Union which fought back successfully 138 years ago I extend warm greetings to each of you and your families on the occasion of Labour Day, 2010.
In Solidarity
Patty Rout
First Vice-President / Treasurer
