TORONTO – Janice Tofflemire is a proud member of OCEU/CUPE 1750, currently serving as a picket captain on the picket lines in Windsor, Ontario. OCEU/CUPE 1750 represents employees at the WSIB and have been on strike since May 22 after their employer locked them out.
I attended an Injured Workers’ Day rally. The OCEU sent out an email to remind us that it was going to be Injured Workers’ Day and encouraged us to go. Out of curiosity, I clicked the link to see where the Windsor rally was going to be held and saw that it was a block away from my friend’s apartment and I was planning on visiting him that day anyway. I had no excuse not to go.
I posted a screenshot of the OCEU email and the Windsor rally location in my picket group. I figured if I was going, maybe someone else would like to come too. Also, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things like raising class consciousness and organizing, and so I’m trying to do, and role model, the things that I believe are important to do. Live my values, I guess.
I’ve been experiencing a sort of paralysis. Maybe it’s the doomscrolling. It feels like it’s been one bad thing happening in the world after the next… for my entire life, and the increasingly larger fire hose of news that social media inundates us with is overwhelming. Then think about the fact that many of those awful news stories are ongoing or having ripple effects in people’s lives. Remember when we were all enraged when we found out in the 90s that Nike was using sweatshop labour? Well, workers around the world continue to be exploited. Something like 50 million people worldwide is estimated to be in modern slavery (child labour, human trafficking, and forced labour).
When I told my manager that I was struggling with existential dread, he told me he had stopped watching the news. In the Global North, many of us have been privileged enough to ignore the pain and suffering that is going on around us. Not because we’re bad people, I don’t think, but because the problems feel too big and too many and often too far away for us to do anything about. We’ve bought into the propaganda that is meant to distract and divide us. Our grandparents knew the importance of solidarity amongst the working class. We owe the things that make our jobs bearable to the labour movement, and we have taken them for granted. We have been too ignorant, too overwhelmed, too distracted, too exhausted, too dissociated. But now it is becoming impossible to not notice our middle- and working-class lives fraying at the seams. How long can we continue to believe the propaganda that tells us that “if someone is homeless, it must be their own fault” as the costs or living skyrocket and our wages fail to keep up with inflation? How can we continue to believe it when the people on the street are increasingly our brothers and sisters, our neighbours, our friends.
I don’t want to doomscroll anymore. I’m being very vulnerable by sharing this because my social anxiety is astronomical, and I feel crazy all the time with all that is going on and it’s just been hyper normalized. Like genuinely a little worried that the urgency I feel will have people talking about me behind my back because they think I’m manic. Maybe I’ve been so depressed and dissociated that the passion I’m feeling only feels like I’m being “too much” and really, I’m reacting perfectly rationally to all that is going on in the world.
The problems seem insurmountable, but I’ve realized that I’m not willing to give up. Even if I can’t change the world, maybe I can at least build community and mutual aid to protect the most vulnerable among us and to lighten the burdens by sharing them. And so, I have to live my values. Even if it’s hard. Even if I’m depressed. Even if I’m anxious. Even if I’m exhausted.
So, I went to the Injured Workers’ Day rally. There weren’t many people there. I counted about 20. There were a few people with CUPE flags from other locals.
My friend, bless him, came with me. He is an injured worker. He is destroying his body for $20 an hour in a physically demanding job. His rent is going up today. He lives his life in survival mode. I am amazed by the fact that he gets up every morning and goes to his job. But he must. He can’t afford not to. When we first met, he told me taking care of his cat was what kept him going. He got a second cat that he worries about being able to afford, but I’m thankful because I want him to have things in his life worth living for.
When you live paycheque to paycheque already, and costs of groceries go up, and rent goes up, you live in survival mode because you are constantly worried about how you are going to meet your basic needs. Human beings are not meant to be chronically in that state. And if you are lacking in community, as more and more of us are, if you are in chronic pain, all of this destroys your mental health.
My employer has given us pretty good health care benefits, and unlimited mental health benefits (although they don’t want to add that to our collective agreement). My friend does not get any benefits through his employer. He must pay out of pocket. Obviously, he’s not going to be able to afford that.
My friend refuses to make a claim through WSIB. His job is precarious. It’s a small business; he can’t afford a car, so he relies on his coworkers for transportation. He doesn’t want to make waves.
We stand at the back of the group, and I feel nervous. During orientation, we were given ID cards and lanyards that didn’t say where we worked. They explained that sometimes people protest us, they said staff has been assaulted before, they said there have been bomb threats. I’ve denied people’s claims and had insults hurled at me; I’ve listened to people sob. I spoke to one woman who had her claim from 2016 fall through the cracks and she explained the series of events that followed and lead to her calling me back from the shelter she now lives in. I’ve had people tell me that if I didn’t allow their claim, they would try to get MAID.
I listen to an injured worker who had her claim denied several years ago, share her experiences. She is no longer able to work because of her injuries. She lives in chronic pain. Later she tells me about how following her workplace injury, her support system disappeared. She talked about being treated as if she is drug seeking when she went to the ER, but she just wants to be able to function. I think about how people like Josie get pushed into activism. Slipping through the cracks is a sure way to see where the cracks are. I’m glad there are people like her that aren’t willing to give up.
I learn about the Meredith Act. I’ve never heard of it before. I reflect on the aspects of my job that I don’t feel good about. I make a note to learn more.
At the end of the rally, I push down my social anxiety and walk straight for the main people who had been speaking. I introduce myself as the enemy, a joke, which I follow up by blurting out that all I want to do is raise class consciousness and organize the working class. They welcome me warmly and my anxiety dissipates and is replaced by the excitement of talking to people who understand the urgency and who are already organizing. I know that I have more in common with injured workers than I do with any CEO or executive. I know that the work that injured worker advocates do will benefit all of us, while my employer refuses to create a healthy working environment and denies there is even a workload problem.
People are suffering. People are worth more than just their ability to work. Working class people, people living with work-related and non-work-related disabilities, we all deserve to live in dignity. Our ability to do that is being increasingly stripped from us. Housing, food, access to medical care? These are human rights. We are failing to protect the most vulnerable among us and allowing the things that help working class people to be privatized and eroded.
We cannot look out only for ourselves. That’s what got us here. In a capitalist society, money is power. But for working class people, our power lies in our numbers and our ability to withhold our labour.
I’m looking for the people who know that things are broken, and we need to do something. No one is coming to save us. It is up to us to save ourselves.
I’m trying to find where I am most useful given my knowledge, skills, experience, resources, etc. Does anyone want to get together and talk about what we’re seeing and what we’re doing or could be doing about it? I’m a blast at parties (as long as they are class consciousness raising parties, which I think should actually be a thing we do).
When we started to picket, I worried about whether working class people would support us. The support from the Windsor community has been amazing! Sure, we got one “Hail Satan” and a couple choice fingers, but I have been overwhelmed by the support. And I am gracious for the injured workers who are willing to be in solidarity with us.
As they say, united we bargain, divided we beg. Not just within our union, but between all unionized workers, non-unionized workers, people with disabilities, retirees, foreign workers, and all other vulnerable people in our communities.
I’ll leave you with a question to reflect on: What role does class consciousness play in your job?
(Also, if you’re looking for a sign, this is it)
In solidarity,
Janice
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For more information, please contact:
Bill Chalupiak
CUPE Communications Representative
416-707-1401
mb/cope491
