Happy Labour Day

Labour Day has been marked as a statutory public holiday in Canada on the first Monday in September since 1894.

It originated in the first workers’ rallies of the Victorian era. Historically, workers marked the day with various activities. These included parades, speeches, games, amateur competitions and picnics. The holiday promoted working-class solidarity and belonging during a time of rapid industrialization. Since the Second World War, fewer and fewer people have participated in Labour Day activities. Nevertheless, it remains a statutory holiday. Many Canadians now devote the Labour Day holiday to leisure activity and family time. Labour Day is supposed to be a heartfelt celebration of workers and their families.

Today we take paid holidays, safe workplaces, medical care, unemployment insurance, fair hours, union wages and 'the weekend' for granted. But how many of these advances would have happened if it were not for the long-forgotten heroes who fought so hard to make unions, and Labour Day, a reality in the first place?

Labour Day began in Canada on April 15, 1872, a mere five years after Confederation. On that historic day the Toronto Trades Assembly, the original central labour body in Canada, organized the country's first significant 'workers demonstration.'

At the time trade unions were still illegal, and authorities still tried to repress them, even though laws against "criminal conspiracy" to disrupt trade unions had already been abolished in Britain.

Despite the obstacles, the assembly had emerged as an important force in Toronto. It spoke out on behalf of working people, encouraged union organization and acted as a watchdog when workers were exploited. Occasionally, it also mediated disputes between employers and employees.

By the time the landmark parade was organized in 1872, the assembly had a membership of 27 unions, representing woodworkers, builders, carriage makers and metal workers, plus an assortment of other trades ranging from bakers to cigar makers.

One of the prime reasons for organizing the demonstration was to demand the release of 24 leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union (TTU), who had been imprisoned for the "crime" of striking to gain a nine-hour working day.

Held on Thanksgiving Day, which was then observed in the spring, the parade featured throngs of workers and a crowd estimated at 10,000 Torontonians who applauded as the unionists marched proudly through the streets, accompanied by four bands. In speeches that followed, trade union leaders demanded freedom for the TTU prisoners and better conditions for all workers.

It was a defining moment in Canadian labour history, opening the door to the formation of the broader Canadian labour movement over the next decade and sowing the roots of what is now an annual workers' holiday around the world.

The Toronto parade inspired leaders in Ottawa to stage a similar event. A few months later, on September 3, 1872, seven unions in the nation's capital organized a parade more than a mile long, headed by an artillery band and flanked by city firemen.

The Ottawa parade passed the home of Sir John A. MacDonald, the prime minister. He was hoisted into a carriage and taken to City Hall where, by torchlight, he made a ringing promise to sweep away "such barbarous laws" as those invoked to imprison the TTU workers in Toronto.

In 1873 the Toronto Trades Assembly called a national convention and set up the first national central organization, the Canadian Labour Union (CLU), which in 1886 became the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC), which was one of the forerunners of the present Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), now the major national labour organization in Canada.

Initially, Labour Day was celebrated in the spring but that did not last long. After it was declared a legal holiday by the Parliament of Canada on July 23, 1894, the celebration was moved to the early fall, where it has remained ever since.

Here is a link to a song about the Union Maid by Pete Seeger, to end the post on a high note.

Labour Day

Today, there will be the obligatory articles buried in the press about Labour Day, and the labour movement and workers will take the day off to celebrate role of workers in our society. But what do we have to celebrate? 

Union membership is on the decline and the future of unions is not, in my mind, bright. Somewhere in the 1980's we lost the idea that working people were better off with a union. The disconnect between workers rights and union membership and strength were lost, I think by design and by a conservative push and control of mainstream media.  But perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel, at least in Canada. Our Supreme Court of ruling in January of 2015, said that the right to strike is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The ability of workers to go on strike is a fundamental part of collective bargaining; a corner stone of our free and democratic society. It is extremely important to have the highest court in our country recognize this as a right of all workers, private and public sector alike,” said Paul Moist, national president of CUPE. “No union ever wants a strike, but without the right to strike, employers have an unfair advantage. This decision secures a balance between workers and employers in negotiations.

This decision stems from Saskatchewan labour legislation passed in 2008 - the Public Service Essential Services Act which put unjust limits on which public sector workers could go on strike in the province. The Supreme Court struck down the law because it violated Saskatchewan workers’ Charter right to freedom of association.  

The decision affirms that all workers, in all provinces, have the constitutional right to strike or to have another way to resolve labour disputes if their work is essential to health, safety or security. Earlier this month, in the RCMP case, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of Canadian workers to form and join unions.

Some highlights from this decision are:

The right to strike is essential to realizing these values through a collective bargaining process because it permits workers to withdraw their labour in concert when collective bargaining reaches an impasse. Through a strike, workers come together to participate directly in the process of determining their wages, working conditions and the rules that will govern their working lives. The ability to strike thereby allows workers, through collective action, to refuse to work under imposed terms and conditions. This collective action at the moment of impasse is an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of employees in their working lives.

The right to strike also promotes equality in the bargaining process. This Court has long recognized the deep inequalities that structure the relationship between employers and employees, and the vulnerability of employees in this context. While strike activity itself does not guarantee that a labour dispute will be resolved in any particular manner, or that it will be resolved at all, it is the possibility of a strike which enables workers to negotiate their employment terms on a more equal footing.

The right to strike, however, is not a creature just of the Wagner model. Most labour relations models include it because the ability to collectively withdraw services for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of employment — in other words, to strike — is an essential component of the process through which workers pursue collective workplace goals.

This historical, international, and jurisprudential landscape suggests compellingly that a meaningful process of collective bargaining requires the ability of employees to participate in the collective withdrawal of services for the purpose of pursuing the terms and conditions of their employment through a collective agreement. The ability to engage in the collective withdrawal of services in the process of the negotiation of a collective agreement is, and has historically been, the irreducible minimum of the freedom to associate in Canadian labour relations.

The Canadian trade union movement grew out of the industrialization of the economy at the end of the 19th Century. At that time, unions were predominately a male domain and remained so until the 1960s. Today, a union member is slightly more likely to be a woman, and working in an office, school or hospital, while factory workers, miners and other blue collar trades have seen their union membership fall over the past quarter century.

The decline in the unionisation rate is not a recent phenomenon. In Canada, most of the decline took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Since Statistics Canada began measuring unionisation through household surveys, the rate of unionisation has fallen from 37.6% in 1981 to 28.8% in 2014.

The first labour organizations in Canada appeared in the early 19th century, but their growth and development really occurred in the early decades of the 20th century. During most of the 19th century labour unions were local, sporadic and short-lived. Moreover they were illegal, prohibited by strict anti-combines legislation, in view of the basic principle of the freedom of commerce and competition. From l872 they were allowed to exist by the Trade Unions Act, passed that year by the federal government. But union activities, such as demonstrations and strikes, were controversial until the 20th century.

Many types of organization existed in the 19th century: by trade, by industry, by region, by ideology. Survival was long to come. Total number of union members was erratic, depending mainly on the level of economic activity. At the turn of the century, it was less than 100 000 corresponding to less than 10% of the labour force.

The major growth of labour organization came only in the 1940s as a result of the industrial development spurred by the war industries and the postwar boom, and from new legislation (1944) permitting union certification and forcing employers to accept collective bargaining with employee representatives. Thus, during the 1940s, membership in labour organizations more than doubled, from less than 400 000 to 1 million, and the level of unionization rose from 20% to 30%.

The degree of unionization reached 34% in 1954, but returned to 30% in the late 1950s. In the 1960s efforts were made to tap new sources of members, eg, office workers and some professional employees. In the late 1960s all Canadian jurisdictions (except Saskatchewan, which had done so in 1944) granted public-sector employees the right to organize and bargain collectively. The level of unionization consequently rose to 40% of Canadian nonagricultural paid workers in 1983. Since then it has declined slightly (37.6% in 1987) and now remains relatively stable around 35%.

Without Unions we would not have the rights we have today in the workplace, so my hope is that the shift in attitude seen by the Supreme Court, will help all workers realize that they need to join a union.

Happy Labour Day

On this labour day, I thought these thoughts about Labour would be interesting

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level--I mean the wages of decent living." Franklin D Roosevelt

"It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything." John Locke 

OPPORTUNITY

So long as men shall be on earth

There will be tasks for them to do ,

Some way for them to show their worth;

Each day shall bring it's problems new.

And men shall dream of mighter deeds

Than ever have been done before:

There always shall be human needs

For men to work and struggle for.

Edgar A. Guest