A happy May Day to CUPE Ontario members and to all workers marking International Workers’ Day.
CUPE Ontario celebrates this day in solidarity with workers around the world. It is an opportunity to feel the power of our shared history of struggle, resilience and victories and to re-commit ourselves to the continuing fight for justice for workers.
This May Day comes on the heels of two elections, provincial and federal. In neither were the rights and needs of workers made front and centre. Labour rights, the right to decent wages and working conditions, pension rights, and the fundamental importance of public services for working-class people were peripheral or absent from the campaigns waged by Conservative and Liberal leaders.
It will fall to us to ensure that these issues get the attention and action they deserve, as we resist the right-wing narrative that dominates the political and media agendas.
We see members in our own union taking up this fight. In increasing numbers, CUPE members are resisting attacks on their rights, jobs and futures. They are standing up for fair wages and working conditions, free collective bargaining, and basic fairness.
This year’s May Day finds the members of CUPE 2073 on strike, because they refuse to stand by as their employer, Canadian Hearing Services, guts programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing people and treats its own employees with contempt. We owe these members our gratitude and solidarity, just as we owe them to all CUPE members who have said “enough is enough” in the last year. They include those members of of CUPE 1656 in the Region of Waterloo, CUPE 2361 at Western University, CUPE 905.16 municipal workers in Richmond Hill and CUPE 831 in the City of Brampton.
CUPE members are also proud to stand in solidarity with workers globally. For this International Workers’ Day, Palestinian trade unions asked workers and their unions to join the call for an arms embargo on Israel. And at OCHU-CUPE’s convention, CUPE hospital worker voted to demand an immediate end to military attacks on health care workers, patients, hospitals, health facilities and ambulances in Gaza.
These actions are reminders that International Workers’ Day is for celebrating our collective action and the achievements of working people around the world.
