Unions, organizers and politicians met up in downtown Regina on Monday to celebrate Labour Day, but also cautioned of a partially backsliding working class.
Labour Day is traditionally a day to look back on accomplishments of the workers’ struggle and appreciate the rights they helped fight for, but it’s also a day where labour organizers build workers solidarity and bring more awareness to modern day struggles.
Siobhan Vipond is the executive vice president of the Canadian Labour Congress, and was spreading the word of the organization’s latest campaign called “Workers Together: For a better deal,” which according to their website is a worker-led initiative meant to tackle corporate greed.
“Workers for a better deal, which is highlighting, you know, what workers are feeling right now, which is a pinch and a crunch around affordability and wanting more,” said Vipond, downtown in Pat Fiacco Plaza.
“So we’re launching this campaign because workers really want to push back against politicians who are pretending to be on our side.”
Vipond says workers are making small gains here and there in bargaining wins, but in the grand scheme workers are “falling behind” due to corporations raising prices, grocery prices, inflation and housing costs.
“There is a solution, and so that’s why we’re looking to politicians to come to the table with solutions and that is keeping, you know, inflation, it’s keeping the prices of groceries under control, it’s making sure that those who are earning [an] unbelievable amount of money right now are paying their fair share and so that workers can have a good life that they deserve.”
Chris Simmie is running for a Regina city council seat for Ward 10. He was at the Labour Day celebration on Monday. (Radio-Canada)
Chris Simmie, who is running for a Regina city council seat for Ward 10, said labour day is important to him because it recognizes where workers got their protections.
“It’s why we have weekends, it’s how we got a 40 [hour] work week or a five-day work week,” said Simmie.
“It’s a fight that you can never stop, we need to stand in solidarity together and that’s it.”
The fight is a sentiment that resonated with local steel mill worker Brandon-Shea Mutala, who is running for school board trustee in subdivision six, and said he’s a proud member of the United Steel Workers 5890.
“I believe that companies are trying to take away these rights that we fought for and unions are still necessary because of that, fighting for it, and that’s what Labour Day is about. It’s about the fight,” said Mutala.