Union Leaders Say Workers Hold Tools to Fight for a Better Future

Today, workers across Canada will celebrate Labour Day. It is a chance to share in solidarity with one another and reflect on our successes as a movement.

But it’s hard to celebrate success when you are worried about housing, the cost of food, your job and buying power, your child’s opportunities, climate change and the rise of hate and fascism around the world.

When politicians, leaders, pundits and media talk about the economy, about record stock market highs, corporate profits, fast-paced development and soft landings, it’s like looking at a funhouse mirror. The image is grossly distorted and deeply disquieting. Whose economy are they talking about? And who exactly is that economy benefiting when working people are struggling everywhere to just get by?

Around the world corporate elites and the extremely wealthy continue to consolidate their gains and amass yet more wealth while workers and their families struggle to pay for basic necessities. The high cost of groceries is a perfect example, with corporate power concentrated in a few large chains that are driving inflation through excess profits.

Parliament has failed to hold these companies and CEOs accountable or implement windfall taxes to deter or curb their behaviour. Instead, the talk is of “cooling the economy” with measures like higher interest rates, which drives higher unemployment and further reduces buying power. Both the policy and the result disproportionately impact working people.

Through their companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and Tesla, the extremely wealthy seem to have no qualms about flaunting their attacks on workers’ rights to make a fair wage, to be housed, to be safe, to live.

Whether they brazenly union-bust, ostentatiously use social media to divide, or pour dark money into extremist “think tanks” to corrupt our politics, there is an all-out bid to set the entire system against working people solely to ensure the status quo or less for workers.

All of this perpetuates the conventional wisdom that the concentration of wealth and power is inevitable, even beneficial, and there is nothing that can be done to change things.

But workers know differently.

Organize to thrive

Unions are our best tool to push for fair treatment of workers and to hold corporations accountable. By organizing, we can build a future where working families thrive. Unions have always been at the forefront of the fight for workers’ rights, advocating for fair wages, safe working conditions, decent retirement and job security.

Initiatives like the Canadian Labour Congress campaign Workers Together will ensure that every voice is heard in the struggle against corporate greed and anti-worker politicians.

Organizing in our workplaces and our communities, building unions and fighting campaigns, is the only way to counter the power of the extremely wealthy.

B.C. had one of the best post-COVID economic recoveries and continues to be strong. That’s thanks in part to a government that didn’t offload yet more impacts and misery onto working families, but instead supported people and businesses through difficult times.

After years of erosion and going backward, the choices of workers at the ballot box translated into the highest minimum wage in the country, stronger workplace protections, better safety regulations and more access to rights to unionize.

But there is still a lot of work left to be done on all these issues and more.

Vote to move forward

Working people in the Metro Vancouver region have choices to make in the next few years at every level of government. Every vote matters.

Workers must engage and participate to ensure democratic institutions remain robust and accountable. We have the power through our numbers, and organization, to elect the best people for the job, and to demand more and better for workers post-election.

Workers can reject fear, hate and the false promises of political leaders who protect corporate interests with divide-and-conquer tactics. Such leaders hurt working people by protecting wealthy corporations from paying their fair share in taxes, while pushing for cuts to essential services like health care and pensions.

The vicious cycle of cuts undermines institutions, which when weakened justifies privatization, which in turn cuts jobs, wages and benefits for workers. More and higher fees are also charged, which makes more money for the wealthy but deepens inequality and creates yet more economic misery for working people.

A better deal for workers means politicians who will reinvest in community-strengthening programs. Politicians who will commit and follow through on affordable health care, social services and accessible housing, which are necessities for a fair society.

These investments will continue to create a stronger, more resilient economy that benefits everyone. Together, we can build the future we want to live in.

And we won’t go backward.

Janet Andrews is the secretary-treasurer of the New Westminster and District Labour Council. Stephen von Sychowski is the president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council.

[Top: A better deal for workers means politicians who will reinvest in community-strengthening programs, write the authors. Photo illustration via Shutterstock.]