Don’t forget the role of unions — especially now

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/04/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Many people are talking about how horrible it is to leave a hoarded mess of stuff for your kids to go through when you are old or gone. But I have enjoyed going through Al Cerilli’s piles of papers from the basement of my childhood home in North Kildonan and discussing it with him.

It has been a labour of love as well as an education in labour history and what an activist union leader and organizer can do. It has also equipped me to respond to recent opinion piece, Private sector union members support Poilievre (March 18).

When Al retired from his job as vice-president of Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Transportation & General Workers, he continued as a labour activist for the next 20 years. In retirement he initiated the Canadian Congress of Union Retirees and the Logistics Institute Program in River East School Division. He was part of the JS Woodsworth Historical Society and United Way Campaigns as well as being the first Labour Scholar in Residence with the University Manitoba Labour Studies Program.

He could do all these things because he was a student of political organizing, and he left us a paper trail. He read and followed such a wide variety of issues that he could create persuasive letters and comprehensive briefs for legislative committees. Politicians from all parties would pay attention, even seek him out.

For Al, there was no transactional unionism, in which unions focus on a trade of services, like negotiating better wages and benefits, exclusively for their members, in exchange for union dues paid. Al was all about politicizing and organizing all workers to build a movement for a more fair and healthy society.

That is what is needed, so union members don’t vote for small, short-term tax cuts and austerity or buy into right wing platitudes and simplistic racist and xenophobic solutions, blaming other individuals for unemployment or similar challenges. Pierre Poilievre is trying to pull a Trump and encourage self-interest and direct the anger of working people at marginal scapegoats — when it is the millionaires raking it in, those benefiting from inflation, we should focus on.

Al would cut through today’s fragile fake personas and the systems created to protect their privilege. Union members knew Al gave a damn. He would meet with them, then advocate for their real interests — a share in profits not just as higher wages but through corporate taxes paid for public services families need.

After going through Al’s many letters and briefs, pecked out on a typewriter, I realize the impact of being raised by the living legacy of “don’t agonize — organize.” Those are politics we need to embrace now, using all the technological and digital tools they didn’t have when the labour movement organized for pensions and a social safety net, public health care, the 40-hour work week, minimum wage laws, and the right to organize.

Unions need new engaging ways to ensure all workers know about our labour history, like how we got employment standards and workplace safety laws. Now new generations of diverse Canadians need to know what these rights are, what they mean and how to protect and enhance them. The likes of Poilievre won’t offer that.

Workers need to know how we can lose, and are losing, the gains made by organized labour after two world wars. Wars that taught us that militarism is not in the interests of workers, that it is working people who die in war, and not working people who profit from war.

Labour leaders like Al connected the dots between issues of labour standards, wages, ecology and peace. Al was ahead of his time advocating for women in labour leadership, and BIPOC and LGBTTQ+ rights, and he did this by developing a worker identity based on the solidarity of working people and our shared interests no matter our race, ethnicity, gender, age or other differences.

This is the labour and political leadership we need now so working people are not fooled into voting for wolves in sheep’s clothing, like Poilievre. They will see through Poilievre’s unbelievable promises about certifying foreign health professionals in 60 days. As Al world say: give your head a shake, and don’t fall for conservative politicians peddling for labour votes.

He might quote Tommy Douglas, “we don’t just want your votes we want you to join us in dedicating yourself to building a better world for everyone.”

Marianne Cerilli was a three-term MLA and mayoral candidate. She has taught university courses on women in politics and women and gender studies, as well as in community development.