Photo: CUPE 1409 members locked out by the Township of Black River-Matheson Photo Credit: CUPE 1490 Press Release
Always look for the union label, never cross a picket line and hell mend you if you ever scab! These are a few of my favourite things!
When I was a kid, there were US television commercials with this catchy tune telling me to:
Look for the union label
when you are buying that coat, dress or blouse.
Remember somewhere our union's sewing,
our wages going to feed the kids, and run the house.
We work hard, but who's complaining?
Thanks to the I.L.G. we're paying our way!
So always look for the union label,
it says we're able to make it in the U.S.A.!
The song by Paula Green with music by Malcolm Dodds (1975) promoted the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees – formerly International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union et al.
I also learned as a kid to never cross a picket line. In fact, if you pass by a picket line you honk in support – something my kids eventually had to accept I was going to do despite their embarrassment.
My kids learned that I would take whatever kid was home to march the picket line with me – even if it was not my own union striking. I’ll never forget the look on my eldest daughter’s face the first time she saw my fist pump the air when cars honked in support.
While driving to summer programs we’d listen to Music From the Coffee Lands learning about trabajo [work] and Peter, Paul and Mary asking, “Have You Been to Jail for Justice?” The trick is always have your surety lined up before hand and make sure that the kid you call is not pissed off with you that day because you don’t want to waste your one call from the police station.
At home, there was Woody and Arlo Guthrie as well as Pete Seeger and Melvina Reynolds’ Little Boxes which garnered more respect with my kids once the series Weeds used it with the opening credits.
And, as one of my kids learned during the 2017 college strike, you can do your assignments to stay on top of things, but under no circumstances do you ever submit an assignment until the strike is over — especially if management tells you it’s okay.
And, if you ever want to eat at my dinner table again, you will take coffee, donuts and even soup to the picketers and do an hour or two carrying a sign in support of your instructors.
As for the never scab rule. Well, you will absolutely never be invited to my dinner table if you scab. Too bad for you, because I’m a red seal certified journeyperson cook and my dinners are damn delicious.
I also learned, while apprenticing and working in that industry, that restaurants desperately need to be unionized, right across the board from cooks to servers to dishwashers, in order to stem the exploitation of women, migrant workers and international students and to end toxic misogynous kitchen culture.
For those readers unfamiliar with scabbing, I’ll give a brief history. Scabs are commonly known as a crust that forms on a wound. In the 1700s the term was used to describe workers who refused to join trade unions. By 1806, the term described strike breakers willing to cross picket lines replacing the striking workers and undermining union bargaining power.
For me, scabs, often referred to as ‘replacement workers’ by management, stop the hemorrhaging of profits during contract negotiations. Scabs essentially undermine workers’ rights to fair and open collective bargaining as well as their right to strike. That undermines the overall integrity of the process of bargaining in good faith – something employers are generally loath to do.
And, I make that observation through the lens of an Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) member who routinely experienced provincial government after provincial government negotiating contracts at the last minute two years after the previous contract had expired.
The only things lower than a scab are the security team hired to escort scabs across picket lines and the CEOs who hire and pay scabs, and their escorts, in an attempt to bust the union.
Which brings me to today’s podcast with Julia Smith, Assistant Professor in the Labour Studies Program at the University of Manitoba.
Smith’s research and teachings include the history and politics of work, unions, labour relations and women’s activism in North America.
Smith and I discuss the current Canadian union scene focusing on the workers’ rights with particular emphasis on marginalized, migrant and young people as well as women. We also look at the barriers that need to come down in order for the labour movement to truly be inclusive.
While the number of unionized workers in the private sector is down, public sector unionization is up and improving the social determinants of health and quality of life for everyone in Canada. However, there is still much work to do.
Between 80 to 90 per cent of Finns are unionized or covered by a collective agreement. That means, over 94 per cent of Finnish workers earn close to the average middle class income wage.
Contrast that with Canada where 31 per cent of workers are unionized and only 23 per cent of workers earn close to the average middle class wage.
In Canada, the average chief executive officer earns 243 times more than the average worker — $14.3 million vs. $58,000 (2021). Meanwhile, many workers with full-time jobs live in poverty as do workers working two, three and more jobs.
I think that it’s important to speak to the criminalization of strikers and the violence that strikers often endure. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 seems like a good place to start. The entire city was shut down for 38 days after 500 telephone operators – women known as the ‘Hello Girls’ – did not show up for work on May 15, 1919.
By day’s end, over 35,000 workers from the public and private sectors had joined the strike demanding higher pay, better working conditions and the right to bargain collectively. The city of Winnipeg came to a standstill.
The strike ended four days after Bloody Saturday, June 21, 1919, when Royal Canadian Mounted Police ridding on horseback and carrying baseball bats attacked strikers and officers shot and killed two men.
Meanwhile, 15-year-old Tommy Douglas was watching the brutal attack unfold from a rooftop galvanizing his commitment to workers when he realized that the government’s response was part of a pattern where government is always prepared to resort to violence to break the back of organized opposition to capitalist oppression.
Hear Helen Armstrong, Labour Union Organizer (1875 – 1947), recall the Winnipeg General Strike (1919).
Strikes don’t always mean workers are demanding more money or even better working conditions for themselves. In 2020, elementary (EFTO) and secondary (OSSTF) teachers held rotating strikes advocating for smaller class sizes, more educational assistants in classrooms and demanding an end to education funding cuts.
More recently, the Township of Black River-Matheson decided to get tough with municipal employees who were negotiating a better deal for new employees.
And, once again Tommy Douglas is spot on when he observed that government – or, let’s be honest, most corporate fascist CEOs – eventually turn to violence to get what they want.
On October 15, 2023, the Ontario Township of Black River-Matheson decided to lock out 14 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 1490.
That means, the employer, Black River-Matheson Township, prevented workers from accessing their worksites and suspended their wages.
Negotiations continued during the lockout, but ended on December 23, 2024. A strike vote held at the end of the year meant that workers were officially on strike as of January 2024.
On February 14, 2024 two picketers were allegedly struck by a scab-driven truck. A day later, the township issued a trespass notice to the 14 employees barring them from the local arena, town hall and public works depot.
The township also extended that barring to include other CUPE members and employees effectively criminalizing all of these workers.
The municipality also posted advertisements for nine temporary positions – aka, scabs – to fill striking workers’ roles and have filled several in the interim.
Two city managers have reportedly been charged with harassment and assault among other offences.
Not surprisingly, the township had to walk back sections of the no trespass notice that applied to all CUPE members after it was brought to their attention that emergency personnel needed to attend calls at these sites. So, as it now stands, emergency personnel can attend these sites while on-duty, but not when off-duty.
At issue is management’s offer of a 14 per cent increase over four years which CUPE local 1490 is rejecting because the township’s ultimate goal is the creation of a two-tier wage system with new hires receiving lower wages and having less job security.
Currently, new hires must complete a one-year probation after which they receive the full wage rate. The new grid system that management wants to introduce would create a five-step system with new hires getting four per cent with each step before reaching the full-time rate.
CUPE filed for a judicial review with the Superior Court of Justice of the Township of Black River-Matheson to determine if the township’s actions and trespass notice violates employee rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
While we wait for that decision, CUPE is calling for restitution and anti-scab legislation. Only Quebec and British Columbia currently have anti-scab legislation that has been in place 45 and 30-years respectively.
The Liberal government tabled the Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Industrial Relations Board regulations, Bill C-58 prohibiting the employment of replacement workers while protecting fair and transparent bargaining on March 19, 2024.
The federal bill unanimously passed second reading and is awaiting Royal Assent before it becomes law. It is hoped that provinces will then adopt similar anti-scab legislation.
As for naysayers like Canadian Chamber of Commerce CEO, Perrin Beatty, if business doesn’t want to experience a shut down during a strike, then CEOs need to show up to the bargaining table, period. They also need to leave their egos at home when they come to the table and start bargaining in good faith. Because at the end of the day workers just want fair compensation for their labour, the best for their brothers and sisters and thriving communities — not just in the financial sense — to pass on to their children.
As for my kids and me? Well, between the six of us, we are members of seven different public and private sector unions and have belonged to at least another three over the years. Not everyone of us is happy with our representatives and chief negotiators, but we know the steps needed to make improvements and realize that can take a bit of time. It really comes down to the fact that, just like any other community work that’s worth doing, improving your union means being actively involved and having each others’ backs.
On Tuesday, April 2, 2024 show up for CUPE 1490 and let them know you have their back.
Stand in solidarity with striking CUPE 1490 workers outside 181 Bay St. Suite 4260 in Toronto from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm.
“The Township is banning all CUPE members across the country from three municipal sites. So, CUPE members and allies from other unions will just have to picket this mining company in Toronto instead,” Serge Bouchard, President of CUPE Local 1490 said in a press release.
Join Fred Hahn, President of CUPE Ontario; Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour; Krista Laing, Chair of CUPE Ontario’s Municipal Sector; Serge Bouchard, President of CUPE Local 1490; striking workers and their allies as they rally outside a Toronto mining company that’s currently looking to hire workers in Black River-Matheson.
RSVP: https://cupe.on.ca/torontoforbrm/
Groups doing work with marginalized workers:
Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
MFL Occupational Health Centre
Warehouse Workers Centre (Peel)
Immigrant Workers Centre (Montreal)
Workers Action Centre (Toronto)
John Clarke, writer and retired organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) johnclarkeblog.com
Very interesting 3-minute video by Robert Reich: Why the Right to Work is Wrong. Every Ontarian should watch this video because at the end of the day, this will be coming to Ontario if Doug Ford gets his way.
Music: Real Estate by UNIVERSFIELD is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. freemusicarchive.org.
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Always look for the union label, never cross a picket line and hell mend you if you ever scab!These are a few of my favourite things!