Belatedly Be-Labour-ed Day

One week ago tomorrow, trade unionists, union members, union supporters and their friends and families rallied in cities across this country.

I've spent the last week trying to sift through the coverage, the press releases and other related material to try and get some sense of where our labour movement is at.

Naturally, the manufacturing sector topped the list of mentions. The loss of unionized jobs is clearly--and unsurprisingly--hurting the big private sector unions, and they're mad. Mad at the government, for lacking a strategy, and at big and mostly foreign companies that aren't making the kinds of commitments to Canadian workers that union leaders would like to see. The pressure in Southwestern Ontario is palpable, and recent auto sector layoff announcements will not help much.

The Harper Government itself is another issue the movement is focuses on. Everything from "secret trade deals" to the war in Afghanistan were up for discussion and dissection in the last week, on top of their action or perceived inaction on the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Another interesting theme was that of "Let's remember the rights, priveleges and other good stuff we've won, so we don't forget how hard it was." The variation to this was, "We can't lose what we've got. Let's make sure we're thankful for it."

It was here, that, my mind being what it is, I cast my thoughts outside of Canada. There are, after all, a lot of places that don't have the rights, standards and other good stuff that we have here. But I didn't look to the developing world: there are major issues in countries that have appallingly low labour standards, and I can't even fathom how I could go there on this blog. Well, constructively, at least.

No, I went South, to our neighbor. The big, well-known one. With the union density of 12.5 per cent, overall. With private sector density of around 8 or 9 per cent, which many American trade unionists will tell you is teetering on the verge of obscurity. And I wonder about their workers. How are they doing? After all, 30 years ago and Canada and the USA had very similar union density rates, but now the story's a bit different. And I wonder what else is different for your average worker down there.

I could talk about the largest class action lawsuit in history, against Wal-Mart and about the (to me, at any rate) very basic issue of whether not women should be paid and treated the same as men for the same job. I could talk about the issue of illegal immigrants and how the US' politicians are or are NOT handling the problem, despite the fact that these workers are major contributors to their economy and are often taken advantage of.

Or I could look to Utah. The Crandall Canyon Mine, to be specific. Where six men were, for all we know because no bodies can be recovered, buried alive a month ago in a cave-in. Where the subsequent rescue effort killed another three emergency workers and seriously injured another six. And while the investigation into the accident still has to proceed, there is an awful lot of speculation about the role of the mine's owner, Robert Murray, his use of a mining method called retreat mining, and his coloured past as an employer in this entire mess.

And that's when Labour Day makes sense to me, again. Not the anti-war stances or the calls for an "industrial strategy." No: lives. Good, working lives cut short, in our own backyard. Why didn't anyone talk about them?