By Cheryl Jahn

Labour Day events happening this Monday

Aug 30, 2024 | 3:00 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Every year, it’s like an alphabet soup of acronyms of the various unions represented at the Labour Day parade: The BCGEU, the USW, the IOUE. And it likely will be again this coming Monday, when the Labour Day parade kicks off in Canada Games Plaza at 10:30 and marches through the downtown.

“To have the opportunity just to go out and not just to have the march, but also celebrate Labour Day and to get the Union, talk about the union and what we’ve done and what’s accomplished over time,” says Matt Baker, President of the North Central Labour Council.

But the labour movement was significant in a number of ways, bringing about conditions that we simply take for granted as we head to work every day.

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“Like an eight-hour day or minimum wage and now fighting for a living wage, health care, they fought for Medicare, for crying out loud, for women to be able to have maternity leave,” explains Dawn Hemingway, a local labour advocate. “All those were things the workers movement fought for over the years. So I think, you know, it’s had an extremely positive impact on the quality of life that we all have.”

The Winnipeg General Strike has gone down in the annuals of North American labour history. In 1919 it began as a disagreement between metalworkers and their employers. May 15th. Between 25,000 and 35,000 workers to the streets, bringing the city to a grinding halt.

“The Winnipeg General Strike was really a culmination of the situation that was being faced by workers at that time,” says Hemingway. In terms of poverty, not even having a living wage of any sort even remotely. And I think the thing that sometimes we forget about is the huge role that the workers movement historically.”

And there has been a very recent example of labour flexing its collective muscle. Thousands of rail workers hit the picket lines after being locked out. And the issue is not money.

“It’s not always about money. Safety, working conditions and all of that, you know, are important. And for people to say, ‘Look, I’m I’m prepared to step out and not get paid to be on a picket line to make my job safer.’ Kudos to that. Good for them and I’ll support that.,” says Baker.

And Dawn Hemingway says it’s just as example of how labour isn’t going away.

“I think there’s a lot of fight amongst workers about these questions, and I don’t think there’s going to be anybody laying down. I think people are going to fight to make sure that not only the rights that we have now, but more rights, are there.”

And a subject near to her heart: Women in the workforce. While progress has been made, there is still a gap between what women and men earn.