A Clash of Priorities

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Every day, workers continue to join Unions because employers continue to exploit them. And employers continue to exploit workers because the government not only allows that exploitation, but helps it along through policy and legislation that tells working people that they’re asking for more than they deserve.

You are someone who works for a living. In fact, you’re likely an essential worker who, over the last year and a half, has worked and lived through a pandemic.

What do you believe you deserve? And what are your priorities as a worker for this province?

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Doug Ford nor the Progressive Conservatives (PCs). I believe that the PC party’s priorities do not align with the priorities of working people; a position that Doug Ford has made abundantly clear. But with just under a year to the next provincial election, we also must think about what we want to see from our elected officials?

• Ford froze the pay for broader public sector workers, limiting them to 1% increases per year for three years.

• He cut a planned 3% increase to social assistance programs and ended the basic income pilot program.

• He eliminated the two paid sick days introduced by the previous government.

• He froze minimum wage so that workers, who could’ve been making $15 per hour as of January 2019, are now only making $14.25 per hour.

Not only do these decisions not support working people in any way, but they actually take things away from workers.

More recently, he held an emergency session of the legislature to invoke the notwithstanding clause, which allows the government to temporarily override a portion of your Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and pass Bill 307. That Bill reintroduced parts of the PC’s Bill 254 that amended the Election Finances Act; the same parts of Bill 254 that a Superior Court Judge ruled as unconstitutional the week before.

Bill 307 limits third-party spending to $600,000 for the 12-month period before an election. Before, the $600,000 spending limit only applied to the six months leading up to an election.

And while I believe we should do what we can to protect our elections from outside influence, further limiting the spending of third-party advertisers effectively muzzles the voices that would speak out against Doug Ford leading up to the election.

So, of course, he called an emergency session.

But where was the urgency when seniors were dying in long-term care (LTC)? When healthcare workers were begging for help? Even when the military brought attention to the dire situation, he didn’t act, and he still hasn’t acted on recommendations from his own commission on LTC.

Where was the emergency session to enact classroom caps, improve ventilation in schools, give more support to special needs students, and provide mental health supports?

Where was the immediate action to enact paid sick days so that people wouldn’t have to go to work sick during a pandemic? It took Ford more than a year to put together a disappointing three days’ leave which only apply for COVID-related illness and make workers ineligible for any federal money in the same week.

So, if the Ontario government doesn’t think senior care, children’s health and education, or the health and safety of working people are priorities even during a pandemic then ask yourself: where do you fit on their priority list?

Your Union believes working people deserve more. Working people deserve better.

We’re a year out from getting to use our votes as Ontarians to elect a government that also believes working people deserve more. Your labour matters. Your vote matters.

In Solidarity,

Shawn Haggerty president@ufcw175.com