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May Day is a time for workers to show solidarity to each other. The world is experiencing a collective challenge as the pandemic continues to rage. We are counting on strong public services and the work of front-line workers to keep us safe. We all need to stand with those workers and protect their rights and protect our public services.
Ottawa (30 April 2021) — Worldwide, May 1 is International Workers' Day, also known as May Day. The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) stands with workers in Canada and around the world on this day, honoring the great sacrifices and challenges that many workers face as the pandemic continues. The fight for workers' rights and protections is relentless.
The struggle continues as the urgency increases
This is the second May Day we have commemorated under the cloud of the pandemic. The longer the lockdowns and outbreaks continue, the more difficult it is on workers, especially the frontline essential workers we rely upon. It is more important than ever that workers know that they are supported. The long struggle for basic labour rights has provided workers in some countries great benefits, but these are not the same everywhere. This is why we must continue to organize and fight for benefits and workers' rights. Even in Canada, the fight for permanent paid sick days for all workers needs to be waged and won. Here and abroad, we must ensure that collective bargaining rights are respected and collective agreements are adhered to. We must demand the right to form unions and to strike. We must redouble our fight for safe working conditions and the right to refuse unsafe work. Living wages, pensions and benefits should be there for all workers. This is the ongoing struggle we commemorate on May Day.
Austerity kills — strengthen public services
The pandemic has exposed the cost of the chronic underfunding of public services. The public services we're relying on to protect us during this pandemic were under great stress and strain even before the pandemic hit. Successive governments pushing austerity agenda have underfunded public services and allowed increased privatization and corporatization. This has severely weakened our public services and meant that the system is buckling under the stress of the pandemic. Workers have borne the brunt of the failure to invest in our public services as they have been asked to take on an increasing workload under extreme conditions. The toll, physically and mentally has been high. These workers need support as they go to work every day and do the work to care for us and keep us safe.
Long-term care — make it public
The failure of long-term care in Canada is an example of a service that should have been public, under the Canada Health Act, but was allowed to have an expanding for-profit sector that has failed to protect our vulnerable seniors. Between 70% and 80% of all COVID-19 deaths in Canada occurred in long-term care or seniors' residences. This rate is twice the OECD average and places Canada as the worst in the world. There were decades worth of alarms before COVID hit that the system was failing, but the pandemic brought this failure to the attention of the whole country. The system is clearly broken and needs reform. We must take action to bring long-term care under the Canada Health Act and stop allowing the care of some of our most vulnerable seniors to be secondary to corporate profit.
Global solidarity
There is a disturbing trend for governments and employers to use the pandemic to undermine collective bargaining rights and collective agreements. This is being done here in Canada and around the world. Employers use the argument that because the pandemic is a crisis, this should allow some things to be set aside. Labour has been sensitive to working with governments and employers, collaboratively. That being said, collective agreements and collective bargaining rights are the foundation of workers' rights and we must demand that workers' rights be respected. COVID is being used internationally by authoritarian or right-wing governments as an opportunity to weaken organized labour and workers.The crack down on protests and demonstrations is part of this process.This is a disturbing trend. Public health advice is important to combatting the virus, but governments must not be allowed to use the pandemic to attack workers. We must stand together to demand these rights be respected.
Vaccine capitalism
The starkest example of global inequality at this moment regards access to COVID-19 vaccines. Wealthy countries have secured the vast majority of the world's vaccine supply resulting in impoverished countries being left exposed. Global inequality was a concern even before the pandemic. Even within countries, it is the poorest and most marginalized who are seeing the most outbreaks of the virus. Many of these people are the ones who provide the essential services we rely upon and many do not have the resources to not work. The situation is even bleaker in countries where large parts of the population rely on their daily wage to survive. Lockdowns and lack of vaccines are a bad combination.
Building the future today
NUPGE is a member of Public Services International (PSI). It has released a strong statement on May Day, one that further outlines the concerns around global inequality and the need for the post-pandemic economy to respect workers' rights, not corporate greed or financial speculation.
Even after the pandemic has abated, we will be picking up the pieces for some time. It is important that workers and social movements voices are heard as we 'build back better' as some are calling for. The pandemic is devastating. If it becomes a catalyst for progressive reform and strengthening of our public services, that would be a positive step towards a stronger recovery. NUPGE is already pressing for these reforms. We must all stand together this May Day and in the future.