Labour Day is one of the most important days in my calendar – a day to mark the history and ongoing struggles of working people across Canada.
This year, we won’t be celebrating with parades or marches the way we usually would. Yet we are on the cusp of real social progress, and with the right investments and the right policies, we will have more to celebrate in the future.
I know it doesn’t feel like that right now. After all, this crisis has been very hard on workers and their families. More than 9,000 people have died across the country, and many continue to mourn those heartbreaking losses.
Some saw their jobs disappear, and others were called on to work extra hours at great risk after being deemed essential – including those health-care workers who have taken care of the more than 120,000 Canadians who have tested positive for COVID-19 since March.
The Canada Emergency Response Benefit kept many families afloat, but just barely – $2,000 a month is not much for food, shelter and peace of mind. Even before COVID-19 hit, almost 50 per cent of Canadians said they were on the brink of insolvency. Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer.
As we transition to coping with COVID, we are seeing people desperate to work but unable to find employment. Businesses have shuttered; many jobs won’t be coming back. The rent is due, and eviction bans are being lifted.
And so, Canada’s unions have been working collaboratively, brainstorming and spending time thinking about what comes next. We need a robust economy, built around a fair, generous and inclusive society.
It is our responsibility to make sure our social services are ready to catch people as they fall. We have seen where we failed, and we know what we can fix.
This Labour Day we won’t be coming together in the streets to make noise, but workers are nonetheless organizing for a better society. We can build better communities with a strong, sustainable and inclusive recovery plan that centres workers.
Canada’s unions are calling on all levels of government to replace lost jobs with better ones by hiring people to build green infrastructure, to educate our youth, to care for others – and to give workers paid sick leave and a living wage.
Workers are calling for a strengthening of public health care to include mental health, pharmacare and home care, and an end to privatization in the long-term care sector.
Workers want permanent reforms to employment insurance, disability benefits, education and training, as well as pensions to make all of these more secure and reliable.
We all must reject American-style cuts, austerity and the me-first politics we are seeing in the United States.
After all, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a very important lesson: Canada’s economic, health and social goals are inseparable. It’s time to disaster-proof our nation.
So, this year on Labour Day, instead of joining rallies across the country, let us rally for a Canada that moves us collectively forward, together.
Join the movement at CanadianPlan.ca.
Hassan Yussuff is the president of the Canadian Labour Congress. Follow him on Twitter @Hassan_Yussuff.
