British Columbia Federation of Labour

Published today in The Vancouver Sun    As we get ready to celebrate Labour Day and the contributions made by workers and unions, it is inevitable we will hear another message as well. It will come from business groups or an anti-union "think tank" and it will predictably go something like this: "We needed unions a hundred years ago, but we don't need them today."
People who push this view reluctantly acknowledge the role unions played in winning gains for all workers: increased wages, the five-day work week, pensions, maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, safer workplaces, compensation for injured workers, minimum wages, paid vacations, to name just a few.
Having won these important gains, their suggestion is that unions should simply fold their tents, that government agencies and employers will protect and respect workers rights. Experience tells us otherwise. It tells us that workers had to fight hard to win these gains and that workers must fight just as hard to keep them. Nearly every bargaining table in the province has seen a long list of concessions demanded by employers.
Market forces are not kind to the people who go to work every day. They never have been and they never will be. With globalization, stagnant or declining wages, increasing economic uncertainty and a shrinking middle class, we need unions today more than ever.
Try telling Khaira Enterprises tree planters they don't need a union. Explain that various government regulations and agencies will protect them. Experience has taught them otherwise. Two dozen Khaira workers were rescued from a squalid work camp outside Golden in July. They hadn't been paid. They were malnourished. The camp was dangerous and basic safety requirements were non-existent.
Worse still, the government agencies that were supposed to protect these workers completely failed to prevent this abuse. Numerous government agencies had already investigated Khaira on Texada Island back in March, including the WCB, BC Timber Sales, Vancouver Coastal Health and the RCMP. Instead of shutting down Khaira, the company was allowed to move on to other government contracts.
Try telling minimum wage workers they do not need a raise or a union. Most are twenty years or older and trying to make ends meet. These workers haven't seen a salary increase in nine years and are now the lowest paid workers in all of Canada. Businesses almost always argue against wage increases, that we can sort of understand. What is difficult to understand is the Liberal governments' refusal to increase the minimum wage and the government's abdication of its responsibility to protect the poorest workers in the province.
Try telling farmworkers they don't need a union, or temporary foreign workers or the tens of thousands of people who work full-time but are paid less than they need to provide the basics for themselves and their families.
Respect at the workplace is important, but one of the truest measures of the real value of belonging to a union is reflected on pay day.
Last year the average unionized worker earned $24.47 an hour, while non-union workers were paid $19.89, a difference of $4.58 an hour. Unionized part-time workers earned $7.63 an hour more than non-union part-time workers. Unionized women on average earn 35 percent more than women who do not belong to a union.
The more unionized workers we have in our province, the stronger our province will be. Main Street merchants understand this. Well paid workers spend their pay cheques in their communities and keep local businesses alive. They also pay the bulk of the taxes that pay for critical public services such as health care and education.
The inverse is true too. When unions are under attack, just as they are now, salaries are pushed down, working conditions deteriorate and jobs disappear.
The trade union movement today salutes the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who toil to make the province work whether they are in a union or not.
We pledge to continue to build a labour movement and a province that fights for everyone, not just those fortunate to have the dignity a union provides them.
Happy Labour Day.