Presented by Ken Georgetti on Wednesday, 13 May 2009

(Check Against Delivery)

Sisters and Brothers, it is my honour to bring you greetings of solidarity from the Officers and the 3.2 million workers who are members of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Thanks to President Gil McGowan and your executive officers for asking me to speak today.

I have to tell you what a relief it is to get out of Ottawa and come to a capital where you have a dynamic, exciting, Obama-style speaking premier in Ed Stelmach!

Or, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper enviously calls Ed – Mr. Charisma!

When I attended the G-20 summit in London earlier this month, the big joke of the meeting was that when the group photo of world leaders was being taken, no one noticed that Harper wasn’t even there! But then again, our Prime Minister seems right out of the picture everyday – as the country goes into a deep crisis and he has nothing to say or do to help us.

Although it is pretty ironic that I, along with other union leaders, was able to meet with world leaders like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Brazilian President Lula and South African President Motlanthe [MOTE-LAN-TAY] to discuss solutions to the world economic crisis – but Stephen Harper continues to refuse to meet with the Canadian Labour Congress back here at home!

Those G-20 leaders listened and responded to labour’s concerns, agreeing to make more money available to protect jobs and bring in stronger regulation of financial institutions.

But it is absolutely ridiculous that our prime minister will not meet with the Canadian labour movement to discuss mutually agreeable ways to find solutions to this devastating recession.Unfortunately, Mr. Harper’s unwillingness to meet with representatives of 3.2 million workers does not surprise me.

This is a prime minister who has demonstrated time and again that he is more interested in trying to destroy his political opposition than he is in governing for the whole country.

This is a prime minister who broke his own word and his own law in order to call a federal election last fall.

Mr. Harper preferred to bully the opposition in November last year by attacking the public funding for political parties that eliminates the ability of big business to overwhelm the public interest with campaign contributions.

Mr. Harper preferred to bully the labour movement by attacking the federal public sector’s democratic right to collective bargaining.And Mr. Harper preferred to bully woman workers in this country who demand and deserve pay equity in the federal public sector.

Well, Mr. Harper, it didn’t work in November, it can’t work and as long as there is a Canadian labour movement – you can be guaranteed it will never work!

Our labour movement started from day one as the way workers collectively responded to bullies – bullies in the workplace, bullies called strike-breakers hired by employers resisting unions and bullies in government who helped those rotten employers.

Our Sisters and Brothers in the 1920s and 30s and 40s took on a lot tougher bullies than Stephen Harper.

And as a labour movement we will be here – stronger than ever – a long time after Mr. Harper is nothing more than a footnote in the history books!

The labour movement and the opposition stood up to the bullies in Parliament last December and as a result, Stephen Harper backed down.Maybe because we taught the bully a lesson, he is still afraid to sit down with us, but I say to him today – labour plays an important role in this country and in this economy – ignore us at your peril, sir.

This is no time for the Prime Minister to ignore us – because these are the most difficult economic times any of us have ever seen in our lives – unless you were born before the Great Depression.Over 275,000 workers have been laid off from their family-supporting jobs in just the first three months of 2009.

Since October, over 350,000 workers have been thrown out of work.

The International Monetary Fund predicts the Canadian economy will shrink by 1.2 per cent this year – more than the federal Conservative budget anticipated.

The OECD predicts our unemployment rate will climb to almost 11% by the end of next year – more than the Finance Minister predicts – and we all know how good his predictions were last November.

And as you all know, Alberta is not immune to the economic damage our whole country is suffering.

For the first time in 15 years, Alberta introduced a deficit budget this month of 4.7 billion dollars after years of being debt free – a clear indication that even a booming oil and resource-rich economy is not immune to worldwide recession.

This province has already lost 48,000 jobs since October – and 15,000 in March alone!

And that’s another indication – as the Alberta Fed has long argued – that developments like the tar sands can’t be just an exporter of raw bitumen – we have to create value-added production to refine the oil – and create the good jobs that goes with that.

So Alberta’s unemployment rate jumped by more than a full point in February and went up even more – to 5.8 per cent in March – the highest rate in 6 years!

48,000 Albertans thrown out of work since October.

What makes that bad situation worse is that amazingly, Alberta has the lowest eligibility rate for Employment Insurance in all of Canada.

Just 25 per cent of unemployed Albertans qualify to receive EI benefits – which is totally outrageous.Albertans have to work more hours than workers in any other province to get EI – and then they have a shorter benefits period as well.

And I suggest to you that Albertans should be telling their Conservative Members of Parliament – especially the Prime Minister – that if they don’t fix EI rules to make them fair for workers here – then some of them might find out the hard way what it means to be unemployed in Alberta!

Workers in Alberta are facing some very tough times – and when times get tough, the labour movement gets going.

Here in Alberta and right across this country, the labour movement is taking action to protect workers’ jobs, workers’ pensions and workers’ rights.We haven’t spent all of our working lives as union members building job security, earning a decent pension to retire on, and fighting for labour rights to make our workplaces fair and safe places to make a living – we haven’t done all that to see it just thrown away in a moment by this economic crisis.

And we haven’t built a better Canada for all workers to let a bunch of greedy, reckless and downright stupid corporate CEOs, banksters and hedge-fund operators ruin our country for everyone else.

Workers didn’t create this economic rip-off – big business did – and driving the get-away cars for them were the right-wing governments that refused to regulate our financial markets!

These corporations are completely, utterly, shamelessly out of control!And we have to put a stop to it now – and never let it happen again.

Because the results of unfettered, unregulated greed are killing our economy and turning the lives of millions of workers around the world into misery.

But don’t let anyone tell you it’s too “complicated” to understand – because it’s actually pretty easy to figure out.

It is a massive and deliberate movement to concentrate wealth into fewer and fewer hands, while at the same time, place more and more of the burden of public expenditures on working people.

It is a colossal power grab that has been going on for thirty years aided and abetted by an unregulated financial system built on greed, and governments too unwilling to do anything about it.If greed is allowed to move unchecked by government, by us in the labour movement, and all our social partners – then that greed will never stop until it has ruined our society.

Don’t forget – this latest economic crisis didn’t happen while workers were doing well – just the opposite.

The reality is that we’ve had 25 years of complete stagnation for working people’s wages.

Statistics Canada has done a major study which shows that through the 1950s to the early 1980s average workers’ wages rose from about $8 an hour to just over $20 an hour.

That’s an increase of about 2 and a half times the starting wage – pretty good.

But can you guess how much the average wage for middle-income workers went up more recently – since 1982 – adjusted for inflation?

Just 50 cents an hour in total – from $20.25 to only $20.75.

That’s a pathetically small amount.

You know, I was at a meeting of the G-8 labour ministers earlier this month.

All the business leaders in the room were quick to tell us we’re all in this crisis “together” – they told us that: “We all have to work together, tighten our belts together.”

I could not hold back – I told them: “That’s funny – because for the last 25 years of the greatest prosperity we’ve seen since the 1950s, you didn’t think we were all in it together – you didn’t think for one minute that workers should share in your prosperity.”

Fortunately for all of us – and no thanks to right-wing governments and employers – the union advantage has protected our members far more than the average non-union worker.

Now we are losing jobs and the corporate fat cats are demanding wage cuts in this recession.

Those same corporate bosses – the top 60 CEOs in Canada – in 2007 were paid an average of 10 million dollars each – a 41% pay increase from 2006.

And what percentage did your pay go up in 2007?

So we need action in this crisis.

That’s why the Canadian Labour Congress is calling on the federal Conservative government to act in four key areas.

Here, in brief, is our plan:

First – Fix the broken Employment Insurance program.

Workers have paid billions into EI and the plan must be there for them when they need it.

Benefits have been cut back drastically and they have to be improved.

Second – our government needs to get serious about creating and supporting Canadian jobs.

It not only needs to invest directly to save jobs in hard-hit industries.

It needs to develop strategies and investments to support cultural industries, environmental, technology, renewable energy and other promising industrial sectors of the future.

Third – protect pensions and ensure every person can retire in dignity after a lifetime of work.

I’m getting very tired of the likes of people like Gwynn Morgan, the former CEO of EnCana Corporation lecturing workers about their modest pension benefits being too rich.

This is from a guy who is being paid a 1.8 million dollar a year pension from EnCana.

We need to make the financial speculators pay the price for ruining our pension plans by paying a fee on financial transactions that will go into a fund to protect workers’ pensions.

We need to increase Canada Pension Plan benefits to protect today’s retired and reduce reliance on instruments like RRSPs that are too vulnerable to the greed of the marketplace.

Fourth – take on the big banks over credit interest rates – especially credit card interest rates that are pushing vulnerable people further and further into debt as they turn to credit cards for basic necessities like groceries.

These are the steps that we must take to begin our economic recovery.You know, at times the issues facing our labour movement are very depressing – now literally so for many Canadian workers.

And the labour movement is up for the challenge.We have an opportunity to change the political landscape, to shift thirty years of deregulation, bad trade deals, and the rule of market greed to one where the common good prevails, where public services are valued over excessive corporate profit, and prosperity is shared rather than concentrated in the hands of the few.To change that political landscape, we – the labour movement – need to build on the foundation built over 50 years ago with the founding of the Canadian Labour Congress.

The CLC’s affiliates are spearheading a structural review of the CLC – as a central labour body – to examine all aspects of how we operate and how we can be an effective movement together.

Your federation is an important part of that review.

The existing Canadian Labour Congress structure was set up in 1956.

From time to time we tinkered around the edges.

But we need to build and grow a movement that meets the challenges of this century – a world where information moves around in seconds not days.

A world where people get their information from electronic devices that fit in the palms of their hands.
This is the goal of this review – building the movement.

Together we’ll shift that political landscape by growing this movement.Because the solution to our current economic crisis ultimately won’t come from the prime minister, it won’t come from big business, and it won’t come from our banks.

The long-term solution will come from us.

Here’s how – we have to take back our democracy.We are the real shareholders of Canada – we own this country.

And we have to engage our MPs and demand that they provide better government.

The best lobbying tool we have is the simplest – it happens when you call or meet with your Member of Parliament to tell them your concerns.

We can’t let any politician ignore the needs of working people any more – it’s too important.

The only thing preventing the complete domination of raw corporate power over our government and our society is – the labour movement.

That’s us my friends. That’s us.Political strength comes when we organize and increase union density dramatically.

And I know we can win – when we work together, act together and speak in one voice – the language of workers. The language of solidarity.

Because as a labour movement, as labour activists, we know that the few things which divide us are small compared to the many things that unite us.

If we have solidarity, if we stand together in the best interests of working people, if we organize, if we build our strength, and if we then use our political power – there’s nothing we cannot achieve.

Thank you for your solidarity and thank you for listening.