The free Labour Day picnic at Barrie’s Heritage Park came with hard messages.
“The most important issues right now are solidarity, contracts and holding the (provincial) government to their promises,” said Anne Marie Brunner, president of the Barrie and District Labour Council. “And making sure that everybody has fair and equal working conditions.
“Housing is another issue, and food. We have a terrible time right now with the cost of food, the cost of housing,” she added. “We have people that are one paycheque away from being homeless. Wages don’t equal being able to have a home. It’s atrocious.”
Brunner said 15 labour groups were involved in Monday’s picnic, representing everyone from paramedics to teachers and electrical workers.
Jackie Taylor, executive vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, said her group is doing a 10-city road tour, covering different regions across Ontario, including an unspecified October date in Barrie.
“This road tour is an election readiness campaign,” she said, “because right now what we have is a (provincial) government that says they’re for the people, but they’re not for the people. Right now the people are having problems with food, housing and accessible health care, so people are struggling.
“We want to know what’s bugging them and a good way to figure out what’s bugging people is to get out in front of people and ask them, then using those voices so they can lobby the appropriate government with an effort to make change,” Taylor added. “It’s extremely important for people to get out and vote. I will not tell people how to vote, it’s their democratic right on how they vote.”
Brunner said it’s also important to remind people what the labour movement has accomplished in its long history.
“Looking back, we’re 152 years of celebrating Labour Day,” she said. “We got rid of child labour, we managed to decriminalize being in a union and we have to let people know that what we do benefits everybody in the working class.
“We all are fortunate to have Labour Day, that we get extra pay for working Christmas Day, that we have holidays to celebrate with our family and if it was not for the history, 152 years of history, we wouldn’t be sitting here today celebrating.”
