Friday Facts: Labour Rights and Human Rights

Posted on Friday, August 30th, 2019

I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that you have a holiday on Monday. It’s Labour Day, the first Monday in September, which has been a statutory holiday in Canada since 1894. It originated in the first workers’ rallies of the Victorian era. This week’s Friday Facts is a reminder of the important historical and ongoing role that Organized Labour plays in advocating for, and securing, human rights in the workplace.

  • Women’s Rights: Not everyone remembers that paid maternity leave benefits have only been around since 1971 in Canada. Before that, a new mother had to quit work or return to work quickly if her family depended on her income. And while the federal government, through the unemployment insurance program, introduced limited 15 weeks of paid maternity leave in 1971 at 66% of a mother’s previous salary, it was only a short time later when unions began negotiating longer paid maternity leave with higher levels of benefits for their members that topped up the portion of salary paid by unemployment insurance benefits. And unions also began negotiating guarantees that women could return to the jobs they held before their maternity leave, paternity leave, and leave for parents who adopted children. In 1981 after a 42-day strike, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers won postal workers across Canada 17 weeks of paid maternity leave. The concept of longer periods of paid maternity leave than was available through unemployment insurance benefits soon became mainstream and expanded across the country. (Canadian Labour Congress)
  • Rights of New Canadians: On March 17, 1960, five Italian immigrant workers, Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Battista Carriglio, Giovanni Fusillo, Alessandro and Guido Mantella, climbed 35 feet underground to continue their work on a tunnel at Hogg’s Hollow, under the Don River near Old York Mills Road and Yonge Street in Toronto. The tunnel was just six feet in diameter, and the men had to crawl underneath a 36 inch water main running through it to pass each other. They hadn’t been equipped with hard hats or flashlights. When a fire broke out, they were trapped, unable to see their way out, blocked anyway by smoldering cables on one side and a cement tunnel support wall on the other. They died of carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation from inhaling smoke, sand and water. The tragedy became the catalyst for reforms in occupational health and safety. Unions led the fight to get the Ontario government to take workplace health and safety seriously, leading to the passing of the Industrial Safety Act. (Canadian Labour Congress)
  • 2SLGBTQ+ Advocacy: In 1991, Delwin Vriend worked in Edmonton as a full-time chemistry laboratory coordinator at The King’s College. Openly gay and equally open about his same-sex relationship, his supervisor ordered him to “quit or be fired” after the college adopted a statement of religious belief that targeted workers like him. Vriend refused and the college fired him. Wronged, he contacted the Alberta Human Rights Commission to file a discrimination complaint but was refused because sexual orientation was not written into the Alberta Human Rights Code and, therefore, not protected. Denied justice, he sued the provincial government and the Human Rights Commission. In 1994, an Alberta court ruled in Vriend’s favour. Echoing previous court rulings on the matter, the judge ruled that sexual orientation should be “written in” as a protected class under human rights law. The province’s Conservative government appealed, and in 1996, the Alberta Court of Appeal overruled the decision. Vriend appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, joined by the Canadian Labour Congress as one of the intervening parties. He won his case. With its decision, the Supreme Court read-in sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination. (Canadian Labour Congress)
  • OPSEU has endorsed the Charter of Inclusive Workplaces and Communities for their members. It sates that “Discrimination in all its forms, including racism and Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Semitism, and all other forms of racism, xenophobia and bigotry threatens our country’s rich social fabric, including the workplaces of OPSEU members and other workers, and the communities in which we live. Dividing people because of race, religion, ancestry or any other difference that undermines human rights serves only to weaken our unions and our society.” Read more here: https://files.constantcontact.com/222b1283101/4c282966-8abb-4df1-abd0-b8a7770d53e0.pdf

Inclusion is everyone’s role here at Algonquin College, and our collective agreements state that: “The College and the Union recognize a shared commitment to achieving employment equity in the College”.

Enjoy your long weekend!


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