For those of you who don’t know why you have Labour day off work, below is an excerpt.
For the unions out there, and especially for Buzz Hargrove, I must point out the bolded text below.
The Canadian labour movement can justly claim the title of originator of Labour Day. Peter J. McGuire, one of the founders of the American Federation of Labour has traditionally been known as the ‘Father of Labour Day’. Historical evidence indicates that McGuire obtained his idea for the establishment of an annual demonstration and public holiday from the Canadian trade unionist.
Earliest records show that the Toronto Trades Assembly, perhaps the original central labour body in Canada, organized the first North American ‘workingman’s demonstration’ of any significance for April 15,1872. The beribboned parade marched smartly in martial tread accompanied by four bands. About 10,000 Torontonians turned out to see the parade and listen to the speeches calling for abolition of the law, which decreed that trade unions were criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade.
The freedom of 24 imprisoned leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union, on strike to secure the nine-hour working day, was the immediate purpose of the parade, on what was then Thanksgiving Day. It was still a crime to be a member of a union in Canada although the law of criminal conspiracy in restraint of trade had been repealed by the United Kingdom parliament in 1871.
Toronto was not the only city to witness a labour parade in 1872. On September 3, members of seven unions in Ottawa organized a parade more than a mile long, headed by the Garrison Artillery band and flanked by city fireman carrying torches.
The Ottawa parade wound its way to the home of Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald where the marchers hoisted him into a carriage and drew him to Ottawa City Hall by torchlight. ‘The Old Chieftain’, aware of the discontent of workers with the laws which made unions illegal, in a ringing declaration from the steps of the City Hall, promised the marchers that his party would ‘sweep away all such barbarous laws from the statute books’.
The offending conspiracy laws were repealed by the Canadian government in 1872.
What’s that? A Conservative Prime Minister repealed the laws that outlawed unions?
Can I get a “Hell Yeah!!” from the autoworkers in Oshawa??
Can I get a “Hell Yeah!!” from the CUPE workers in Ottawa??
Can I get a “Hell Yeah!!” from the CUPW workers around the country??
Can I get a “Hell Yeah!!” from the teachers around the country??
Not a chance in hell.
Because the unions of today have gone beyond what they were created for. They are now the impervious shield of the “me generation”. The word grievance has gone from meaning “a wrong considered as grounds for a complaint” to “Back off or my mafia style organization is going to sue you, the company and the parent corporation and put you all out of business even if it costs me my job.”
Unions are not only joined to fellow union members, but they are joined to the hips of every other union’s members as well. This is most easily demonstrated by the inability for union members to cross the picket line of another union.
This post may not change the way unions operate, but perhaps it will give union members a bit more respect for the Conservative Party because, historically, it was the Conservatives who made it all possible. It was the Conservatives who cared about the working conditions. And it was the Conservatives who cared about Canadians of all stripes, and still do.
