Celebrating the labour movement’s growing strength


TORONTO, Sept. 04, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "Labour Day is a time for all of us to reflect on how working people and our communities are doing. To think about the challenges we face, the battles we’ve fought, and the victories we have won together," said CUPE Ontario Fred Hahn, speaking at Toronto’s Labour Day parade.

“We’ve come through more than a decade of austerity that has resulted in job cuts, frozen wages, short staffing, doing 'more with less,' and with many people having to work multiple low-wage jobs,” said Hahn. “Working people are fed up of taking hit after hit while corporate executives keep getting richer and richer. Workers are standing together, pushing back and we’re starting to make substantial changes that will improve peoples lives.”

“Thanks to the labour movement working together with community organizers we have managed to make significant gains this year for our lowest paid workers and those working part-time,” said Candace Rennick, Secretary-Treasurer for CUPE Ontario. “Bringing up the minimum wage to $15 an hour and getting equal pay for part-timers doing the same job as full-timers will not only make their lives better, it will help to stop the slide backwards and put us on stronger ground to win greater improvements for all workers.”

“Working directly with community residents and allies over the past year, we got the government to stop closing local schools and we successfully stopped the sell-off of our public hydro providers in Wasaga Beach, in Guelph and in Toronto,” said Hahn. “More and more people are turning to unions to get the support they need because they know they can count on us to fight for them.”

“One of the hardest things we’ve faced this year is the resurgence of overt racism and hate,” Hahn said. “One of the proudest moments for me this year was when our CUPE members in Peel Region filled the local School Board chambers, successfully stopping Islamophobic haters who had planned to hijack a meeting with their white-supremacist poison. It is critical that we stand strongly together against those trying to fan the flames of racism.”

“From the women’s march in January to last fall’s rally at Queen’s Park for decent work, 2017 has been an inspiring year for activism,” said Rennick. “We are all stronger together, and together we can succeed at building a fairer world for all of us.”
Following the morning in Toronto Hahn joined Labour Day celebrations in Hamilton and Rennick joined the festivities in Oshawa.
CUPE is Ontario’s community union, with more than 260,000 members providing quality public services we all rely on, in every part of the province, every day. CUPE Ontario members are proud to work in social services, health care, municipalities, school boards, universities and airlines.


            

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