Thank you Brother Sweeney
Sisters and Brothers...
I bring you the warmest expression of solidarity from the thirty-two percent of the Canadian work force who make up the Canadian Labour Congress.
A number of my fellow Canadians are in this hall today. I want especially to acknowledge their presence.
They are proud members of the many international unions that unite working people on both sides of our border.
As well, I want to acknowledge our brothers and sisters who have come here from central labour bodies around the world.
Part of our shared movement, they are at this Convention because of the pivotal role the AFL-CIO plays in the fight-back against corporate globalization.
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Among the many things that unite our two countries, Canada and the United States, is a socially-aware and politically-engaged labour movement.
And employers on both sides of the border should never underestimate our joint solidarity.
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Just a week ago, more than two hundred workers at Quebecor World’s Fernley, Nevada printing plant won their fight for unionization.
Their decisive two-to-one vote to join the Graphics Communication Conference of the Teamsters came as a direct result of a neutrality agreement reached last May with this Canadian printing multinational.
Unionized Quebecor workers in Canada and abroad worked together to put pressure on the company.
We in Canada worked closely over the past couple of years with the AFL-CIO and the GCIU to get that neutrality agreement.
From our shareholder action strategies three years ago to today with the continued support of the CLC and the AFL-CIO, organization of Quebecor’s other non-union plants is being stepped up.
There you have it. A Canadian company. With American workers. Benefitting from international solidarity.
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The Canadian Labour Congress will also mark its 50th anniversary within the year. Like you we are the result of a merger of two great organizations with long proud histories.
But, while it is important to remember and celebrate the past, it is equally critical to address the present…and to face the future square on.
Our job is the building of a stronger, more vigorous and more effective movement…
…to raise the voices and to show the faces of our members...
…to make our two countries work for working families.
In other words, to help them take back their democracy.
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For, my friends, our democracy continues to be stolen away from us. A steady shift in power is the root cause of many of the challenges facing us today.
It is also the source of social and economic ills that spread cancer-like to ever-growing numbers of working families.
Over the last 25 years, we in labour have experienced a concerted and unrelenting attack on our movement…
both from business, and from government… on both sides of the 49th parallel.
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In the early part of the last century the United Mine Workers and John L. Lewis said ‘enough’!
Today, in the early part of this century we also say ‘enough’!
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Brothers and sisters, we’ve shown countless times that we can wrestle power away from the bosses at the bargaining table. And give that power to working families.
Our challenge today is to match those bargaining successes in the political arena.
If we are to deliver the goods for working families, we must organize and mobilize our members to take back our democracy…
and return it to its proper owners – the average honest working family.
We can accomplish this goal. But only if we are loud and clear about our values.
As workers. As trade unionists. And as citizens.
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Let’s use our values – the values of solidarity, equality and respect – to reframe the other guys’ arguments…
When the rich and the privileged call for more tax cuts, let’s be loud and clear about the need to protect and improve services that elevate everyone’s quality of life.
When they attack government, let’s be loud and clear about the value of the public sector.
When they offshore jobs, let’s be loud and clear about the need for a jobs policy and training opportunities for trades and professions.
When they put profits before people, let’s be loud and clear that it was our work and our taxes that paid for the highways, the ports, the Internet and the entire public infrastructure business exploits to make those profits.
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My friends, let’s never forget that every progressive social and economic advance made in our two countries was the result of the solidarity and agitation of workers and their unions.
Now, working people and their unions must fight again. To battle the present-day ‘robber barons’ who control our economy and society.
Now is the time to confront the corporate agenda square on…and take on the élites who have robbed so many of our members…
Robbed them of their standard of living…robbed them of their jobs…robbed them of their dignity.
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All this is why, at the Canadian Labour Congress, much of our energy in recent years has been tied to building our political capacity.
We are striving to make political action an everyday activity – 365 days a year. And not just during the run-up to elections.
Our goal is to build a critical mass of politically-savvy activists…able to make our issues vote-determining issues in local, provincial and federal elections…able, in other words, to take back our democracy.
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And, slowly but surely, we’re making progress. Tangible progress.
This didn’t happen by accident.
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A few years ago, the CLC Executive Council took an important first step. We agreed on a common political agenda for Canadian labour. Not a lengthy shopping list.
Just a number of core issues that we knew were important to our members, to working women and men and their families.
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And, over a two-year period, we kept focused on that agenda.
We kept up the pressure...
…and we got results.
Political action can deliver the goods for working families.
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Our politicians have been compelled to address a number of issues central to the needs of working families:
Improvements to our employment insurance program including parental leave, compassionate leave and shorter eligibility requirements for seasonal and service sector workers.
Money for a new national childcare program — a publicly delivered early childhood education and development program accessible to all.
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And wage protection legislation to safeguard workers’ wages, benefits and pensions in the event of business bankruptcy or insolvency...
so that workers do not lose their retirement benefits because of incompetent and greedy corporate managers.
And, amazingly, in the Federal House, we lost anti-scab legislation at the national level by only six votes!
This is encouraging. But, it is only a start.
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We cannot afford to rest on our laurels, because we still have a long way to go. But, my friends, we’re on the move. And we’re getting there!
We know we have to work even harder to ensure these promising gains actually become and remain the law of the land.
Like you, we believe that unions must be as firmly rooted in the community as they are in the workplace.
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A great example of this took place last May, when thousands upon thousands of Canadian labour activists held a nation-wide protest against Wal-Mart.
In over 40 communities – from the Atlantic to the Pacific…and north of 60 too – we sent a clear message…
…that Wal-Mart is a rogue corporation. That Wal-Mart is bad for communities. Bad for local businesses.
Bad for democracy. And yes, bad for workers!
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And our message was heard.
Local governments in a number of provinces are now denying Wal-Mart zoning and construction approval.
One such city is Vancouver, where three years ago a grassroots union campaign helped elect a progressive, pro-labour mayor and city council.
In Toronto, we now have a union-backed mayor who likes to say that, for him,... every day is Labour Day!
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At Wal-Mart, of course, every day is Bosses’ Day.
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If our Wal-Mart protest was such a success, it was also in large part because our affiliates co-operating in ways never seen throughout my decades’ involvement in the labour movement.
Just this month, the head of our largest private-sector affiliate invited the leader of the second-largest private-sector affiliate to address its Canadian Council.
This may seem like a trivial matter. In fact, it was unprecedented.
That event revealed much that had been wrong – and much that is becoming right – about our movement.
Traditionally rivals, these two unions are putting aside past grievances for the good of working families.
They are saying that they can’t be – and won’t be – divided.
Canadian Labour Congress affiliates are pulling together as never before because we recognize that the real enemy lies outside – and not inside – our movement.
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My friends, never forget that our unions make a real difference in people’s lives – at work, at home, in our communities and throughout the world.
It is no coincidence that there is a strong and independent trade union movement in every democratic nation on this planet.
I am proud of the role the Canadian Labour Congress plays on the international scene.
You should also be proud of the work of the AFL-CIO and of your President, John Sweeney in forcefully taking on the challenges of the day and building an effective global trade unionism over the last ten years.
Working women and men around the world look forward to your continued leadership.
Many of the international tactics we are now talking about – shareholder activism and campaigns to use our pension funds, worker’s capital, to take on international corporations – owe their start to the work done by the AFL-CIO.
Brother Sweeney and your federation are highly respected on the international scene for the support of important causes to benefit the working women and men in many countries.
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So, yes sisters and brothers …we should confront our challenges.
And, yes…we should not be afraid to change.
But, yes…we can also be proud of what we have done...what we are doing…and what we will continue to do for working people everywhere.
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In conclusion, let me quote one of Canada’s most cherished progressive voices – James Shaver Woodsworth.
J.S. Woodsworth was a printer, a union man and a Methodist minister.
He was also the founder, back in 1933, of what became the New Democratic Party: the political voice of working people in Canada.
Woodsworth would open meetings with a prayer that was also a battle cry. He would say:
“What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all. To this end, may we take our share in the world's work and the world's struggles.”
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My friends, I can think of no better way to conclude my remarks than by citing this simple yet eloquent call to arms:
What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all.
Thank you.
