By Steward Howard A. Doughty
Labour Day 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of my first march in the Labour Day Parade. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I walked with the cadres from Locals 560 and 561, other CAAT-A activists, some jovial “staffers,” and many hundreds of OPSEU members from all sectors. Alas, we all get older and I’m no longer able to keep up the necessarily brisk pace from Queen’s Park to the Dufferin Gates of the CNE.
Nonetheless, I have fond memories of carrying the OPSEU banner and then, taking off from the already seedy CNE to join forces at the CUPE Local 79 union hall for a pint with selected Toronto politicians and municipal labour leaders, and then to an Irish pub or a Hungarian restaurant or … for further jollities well into the evening. Good times, good friends!
As someone who’d prefer the ranks of labour to celebrate and self-congratulate on the more traditional “May Day,” I have long felt ambivalent about the selection of the date for the event, but … “it is what it is” … for now. The parade itself, however, and the spirited company to be kept were without equal. But that was then.
Now, a fresh spirit of Union Solidarity is sweeping North America. From Amazon.com and Starbucks to faculty unions at some of North America’s most prestigious universities, it is plain both that “gig” workers and precarious professors are becoming active in their own defence and in coalition with environmental, social equity, and anti-poverty groups in unprecedented and frankly unanticipated ways.
With fresh new leadership at OPSEU under our inspired and inspiring President JP Hornick, as well as within Local 560, the time is right to learn more and more about the Union movement, the historical struggles of the CAAT (Academic) Division, and the constellation of forces that are redefining academic work at Seneca College.
The next few years are going to be crucial for educational workers in Ontario and nowhere is this more important than in the our college system.
It’s time to become part of that future … whether in symbolic actions such as the annual parade or in the more important daily work of developing an increasingly comprehensive and coherent message and growing an ever stronger and more convincing voice for collegiality and co-determination.
To become better informed, there are ample resources at websites such as rabble.ca to and Working In These Times, venerable magazines such as Canadian Dimension, and venerated academic journals such as Labour/Le Travail.
Go exploring, you may be astonished at the quality of what you’ll find.