Presented by Ken Georgetti on Wednesday, 29 April 2009

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 PSAC President John Gordon and your executive officers for asking me to speak today.

Consoeurs et confrères, j’ai l’honneur de vous transmettre les salutations et de vous exprimer la solidarité des dirigeantes et dirigeants et des 3,2 millions de membres du Congrès du travail du Canada.

Je remercie John Gordon, le président de l’AFPC, et vos autres dirigeantes et dirigeants de me donner l’occasion de vous adresser la parole aujourd’hui.

You know, almost everywhere I go, when I talk to workers, everyone seems to think they have the absolutely worst boss in the country.

But thanks to Prime Minister Harper – federal public sector workers actually do have the worst boss in the country – no question about it!

Sometimes I think the Prime Minister is a little bit like the pointed-haired useless boss in the Dilbert cartoon strip.

I say that because, while I was attending the G-20 summit in London this month, the big joke of the meeting was that when the group photo of world leaders was being taken, no one noticed that Stephen Harper wasn’t even there!

But then again, our Prime Minister seems right out of the picture every day as the country goes into a deep crisis and he has nothing to say or do to help us.

It is pretty ironic that I, along with other union leaders, was able to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Brazilian President Lula and South African President Motlanthe 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!

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 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 by attacking the public funding for political parties that limits the ability of big business to overwhelm the public interest with campaign contributions.

Mr. Harper would rather bully the labour movement by attacking the federal public sector’s democratic right to collective bargaining.

And Mr. Harper would rather bully woman workers in the federal public sector who demand and deserve pay equity.

When the Conservative government radically changed pay equity legislation by including it in the budget implementation bill – and removing access to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for pay equity complaints telling you to “bargain” pay equity – and to say to your union leaders they can’t help their own members with pay equity complaints – we just saw further evidence of their true colours and their attitude towards women’s equality.

Well, Mr. Harper, your bullying didn’t work back in November, it can’t work.

And as long as there is a Canadian labour movement – you can be guaranteed it will never work!

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 parties stood up to the Conservatives in Parliament last December and as a result, Stephen Harper backed down.

Maybe because we taught him 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 lifetimes – 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 385,000 workers have been thrown out of work.

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

The OECD forecasts 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.

I want to tell you – your members who are the frontline workers dealing with the massive increase in the unemployed have been put in a terrible position.

Service Canada workers who are dealing with Employment Insurance claims are forced to be the human face of an inhumane policy of the Conservative government – to deny benefits to tens of thousands of hard-working Canadians who need help, but don’t qualify for EI.

The latest Statistics Canada figures show that only 42.8% of unemployed Canadians are receiving EI – and yet the EI surplus now stands at a staggering $57 billion!

And yet, it is your members who bear the brunt of workers’ anger instead of the Conservative government – and we have to make sure that the public knows that P-S-A-C members and all other union members stand for an EI system that helps the unemployed, not hurts them!

But that’s not all this government is doing wrong.

The Harper Conservatives implemented the Expenditure Restraint Act that rolled back freely-negotiated wage increases in collective agreements that your members just signed.

The 2.5% wage increase that was to be effective November 2009 – for CCRA and Taxation Employees got cut in the legislation to just 1.5%.

That is beyond shameful – it is an outrage!

Apparently, the only contracts that are legally binding in this country are the ones paying CEOs and corporate executives huge amounts of money to wreck our economy – not the contracts with the hard-working people who actually make this country work!

I want to say that even if we think we’ve seen everything they can throw at public sector workers, there’s probably still more to come.

Some of you might have heard Industry Minister Tony Clement attacking the decent living wages of auto workers – trying to take the heat off the corporate elite who caused this economic crisis and blame workers instead.

Some of you might have heard of someone by the name of Gwynn Morgan, who used to be CEO of EnCana Corporation in Alberta – publicly attack the modest pensions of autoworkers – while he himself collects an annual pension of $1.8 million dollars.

Well, last month, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy – you remember Preston Manning?

He has this think tank.

And last month he held a conference.

And conservative speaker after conservative speaker got up to say that these economic times are the perfect opportunity to attack public sector wages and public sector pensions.

Voilà toutes les raisons pour lesquelles le mouvement syndical des différentes parties de ce pays agit – afin de protéger les emplois, les pensions et les droits des travailleurs et travailleuses.

Nous n’avons pas passé toutes nos vies actives à instaurer la sécurité d’emploi, à gagner des pensions permettant de prendre sa retraite dans la dignité et à lutter pour donner au mouvement syndical le droit de voir à ce que nos lieux de travail soient des endroits équitables et sécuritaires où gagner sa vie – nous n’avons pas fait tout cela pour voir la crise économique actuelle neutraliser nos efforts en un éclair.

We haven’t built a better Canada for all workers to let a bunch of greedy, reckless and short-sighted corporate CEOs 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.

This 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 power grab that has been going on for 30 years, aided and abetted by an unregulated financial system built on greed, and governments too unwilling to do anything about it or too willing to tear down the regulations that protect us.

If greed is allowed to move unchecked by government, 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 80s average workers’ wages rose from about $8 an hour to just over $20 an hour.

That’s an increase of about two 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 - between 1982 and 2008 – 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, at the 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 labour leaders from our countries that: “We all have to work together, tighten our belts together.”

But as I told them: “That’s funny – because for the last 25 years of the greatest prosperity 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.

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.

We need to make financial speculators pay the price for ruining the security of our pension plans.

We need to increase Canada Pension Plan benefits and OAS, to protect today’s retired.

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 for so many Canadian workers.

But I don’t want to leave you without hope – because the solution to our 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.

Et nous devons nous adresser à nos députés fédéraux et exiger qu’ils assurent un meilleur gouvernement.

Le meilleur outil de lobbying dont nous disposons est le plus simple – il consiste à communiquer par téléphone ou à tenir une réunion avec votre député fédéral pour lui indiquer vos sujets d’inquiétude.

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, we know that the few things which divide us are small compared to the many things that unite us.

Si nous avons la solidarité, si nous nous prononçons ensemble pour défendre l’intérêt des travailleurs et travailleuses, si nous recrutons, si nous accroissons notre force et que nous employons notre pouvoir politique, rien ne sera à notre épreuve.

Merci de votre solidarité et merci de m’avoir écouté.

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.