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30 August, 2001The leader of the 700,000-member USWA asks if Labour Day is being devalued.
NORTH AMERICA: In a Labour Day statement by Leo Gerard, international president of the 700,000-member United Steelworkers of America, he asks: "Is Labour Day being devalued?" What should be celebrated on Labour Day, asks the USWA president? "The fact that -- more often than not -- both parents must work to make ends meet? That they have to work many more hours a week? That real wages declined for 17 of the past 20 years? That nearly a million manufacturing jobs across North America have been wiped out in this year alone?"
More and more multinational companies are transferring their production abroad unless workers accept concessions and, states Gerard, "nowhere is the hypocrisy of today's environment more apparent than in the crisis that so-called 'free trade' has imposed on workers in the North American steel industry, where prices collapsed during the Asian financial crisis and have never recovered."
In Canada, Steelworker members have led the way in taking on the forces of globalisation. Through the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, a non-governmental organisation created by the union in the 1980s for international relief, development and solidarity, an "Inquiry into Corporate Behaviour in the Americas" was held last April in Quebec City. The Inquiry brought together workers from the North and the South -- workers who share a common employer, but whose conditions of work range from decent to indecent. "Labour Day," says Gerard, "offers a moment to reflect on how the lives of workers are being influenced all over the globe. Protecting our way of life is not about keeping opportunities away from workers in the South. It's about taking a position against free trade deals that effectively deny labour and environmental rights. Raising standards. Saving jobs. Making corporations accountable for their global behaviour. Ensuring that governments respond to the needs of their citizens over the 'wants' of the corporations."
Source: USWA
North America's Labour Day, which falls on the first Monday of September, was first celebrated on September 5, 1882.
More and more multinational companies are transferring their production abroad unless workers accept concessions and, states Gerard, "nowhere is the hypocrisy of today's environment more apparent than in the crisis that so-called 'free trade' has imposed on workers in the North American steel industry, where prices collapsed during the Asian financial crisis and have never recovered."
In Canada, Steelworker members have led the way in taking on the forces of globalisation. Through the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, a non-governmental organisation created by the union in the 1980s for international relief, development and solidarity, an "Inquiry into Corporate Behaviour in the Americas" was held last April in Quebec City. The Inquiry brought together workers from the North and the South -- workers who share a common employer, but whose conditions of work range from decent to indecent. "Labour Day," says Gerard, "offers a moment to reflect on how the lives of workers are being influenced all over the globe. Protecting our way of life is not about keeping opportunities away from workers in the South. It's about taking a position against free trade deals that effectively deny labour and environmental rights. Raising standards. Saving jobs. Making corporations accountable for their global behaviour. Ensuring that governments respond to the needs of their citizens over the 'wants' of the corporations."
Source: USWA
North America's Labour Day, which falls on the first Monday of September, was first celebrated on September 5, 1882.