Continuing the Struggle for Workers' Rights

A. Our Legacy: Courage & Solidarity

There was a time in Canada when just belonging to a union was a criminal offense. Men, women and childern worked 90 hour weeks in unventilated, unsafe sweatshops. They went home to three-room unheated tenements they had to share with other families in run-down working-class slums.

The labour movement was born in the struggle by working people to create a better life at work and better homes for their families. Trade union activists and members faced unrestrained Violence by employers and government -- often risking blacklisting, fail and even their lives.

Through courage, personal sacrifice and remarkable tenacity, working men and women won the right to unionize and, eventually, the right to vote, to bargain collectively, and to strike.
Unions were instrumental in securing the workers' rights and social entitlements we enjoy today:

• reduced worktime
• statuatory holidays
• minimum wages
• unemployment insurance
• public pensions
• prohibition on discriminations at work
• regulation of workplace health & safety
• public schools, colleges, and universities
• workers' compensation
• paid vacation
• public health care
• social welfare
• prohibition on child labour

Unions still offer superior wages, pensions and benefits to their members. Most importantly, unions provide respect and dignity on the job to workers by protecting them from unfair dismissal and unfair treatment.

B. The Global Attack on Workers

Union membership is declining or stagnant around the world. There are several causes for this membership crisis.
More and more workers are employed in non-traditional jobs in the private service sector:

• Part-time work
• Casual work
• Telework
• Short-term work
• self-employment
• or, the growing number of workers who remain unemployed

Traditional bastions of union membership have shrunk:

• Union membership in resource and transportation is down because of technological change
• Union membership in manufacturing is down because of plant relocation to low-wage, non-union regions or countries
• Union membership is down in the public sector because of cutbacks and privatization

While union membership has declined, so has workers' political power -- to the benefit of the corporate sector. This swing in political power has had serious consequences for the labour movement:

• Corporate power has increased through trade liberalization deals (NAFTA, GATT, FTA, MAI)
• The legal enviroment for unions has become more hostile
• Governments have been given an excuse to follow corporate policies of reduced taxation and reduced public spending
• Work stress has increased because of speed-ups, lean management and 'management by stress'
• Employers have increasingly attempted to bypass unions through quality circles, team concept, and other 'fads'
• Governments have down nothing about high unemployment, increasing everyone's insecurity at work
• Public programs and services that benefit workers, like UIC, social welfare, and Medicare have been crippled through underfunding.

C. From the Ashes of the Old: Renewing Labour's Strengths

The labour movement must act now to regain its place as the voice and protector of  all working people. We must find new ways to organize the increasing number of vulnerable and insecure workers. If we don't, we risk becoming only the voice of a shrinking minority of highly-paid "elite" workers.

To rebuild, we must first reaffirm and build upon our fundamental principles:

Solidarity
    We must extend solidarity beyond support for other unionists to support for all who are weak and vulnerable.

Equality
    Just as unions create equality at work - so must we join the struggle for equality for all citizens

Democracy
    Democracy is the cornerstone of the labour movement. Our challenge is to find a way to extend democratic participation in our unions to a broader section of our communities.

Labour must unite behind our oritional and most basic demands for workers' rights which are just as critical today as they were 100 years ago!

Workers have the right to decent, secure jobs where their lives and health are not at risk.

Workers have the right to a fair share of the fruits of their labour - enough to enable them to enjoy the full benefits of our civiliation.

Workers have the right to sufficient leisure time in which to live their lives.

Workers have the right to dignity and self respect at work

Workers have the right to join unions, bargain collectively and to take union actions including the right to go on strike.

Workers have the right to full financial support in the event of job loss or injury at work

Workers have the right to any education and retraining they need to ramain productive.

Workers have the right to best quality, free public health and public education.

Workers have the right to public child care.

Workers have the right to safe, clean communities, public utilities and publicly owned and operated municipal services.

Workers have the right to a clean enviroment.

The way forward for unions in the new century will require:

Courage
    to confront the powerful

Tenacity
    to continue the struggle

Vision
    to hold the idea of a better world safe

Flexibility
    to respond to all workers' needs, and to accept new ideas, new strategies, and new tactics from a new generation of workers.

The labour movement will renew itself, so long as workers never forget our past and our principles and the inescapable truth that we can make our own history.

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