Groundbreaking conference marks new beginning for Labour Rights
Kevin Corporon, President of UFCW Canada Local 1000A, talking about why international labour rights are important to Canadian workers |
The Ontario Court of Appeal’s recent and historic decision to award collective bargaining rights to over 100,000 agriculture workers energized dozens of social activists, labour leaders and renowned academics from around the globe who gathered in Ottawa last week to participate in a groundbreaking conference.
The Labour Rights are Human Rights International Symposium, which ran from November 19 to 21, brought together four leading Canadian trade unions representing 800,000-plus workers from very different backgrounds and industries.
The National Union of Public Employees (NUPGE), the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF), the Canadian Police Association (CPA), and UFCW Canada all participated in a series of sessions that helped reinforce commonalities and identify challenges facing the universal establishment of labour rights as human rights.
“We know most workers in Canada want representation on the job, but we also know that the ability of people to join a union has been eroded by decades of right-wing governments and their hostility toward our rights,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley. “UFCW Canada is committed to working with its allies in the labour movement – and beyond – to make consumers and voters aware of the importance of workers’ rights, and to make politicians understand that labour rights are fundamental rights that can’t be taken away with the stroke of a pen.”
Besides providing progressive leaders with a forum for discussing the status of labour rights in Canada, the symposium served the worker movement as a starting point for an aggressive judicial, public awareness and lobbying campaign that will be rolled out in the New Year.
Meetings are scheduled for December to chart a course for the future based on strategic coordinated action and a seven-point plan that oultines the following objectives:
• Expand the fight for rights beyond the courts
• Pick court battles carefully and fight them forcefully
• Fight regressive legislation
• Pressure all governments to comply with international law
• Canada must ratify ILO conventions
• Make labour rights part of the national equality and human rights agenda
• Make labour rights a precondition of working with other progressive groups
