Canada is seeing an increase in strikes, already measure that tariffs and affording crisis continue to affect workers, the unions warn more of action on the horizon.
Some work leaders say that includes a possible battle with a federal government that has repeatedly sent them back to work.
“We are preparing for the fight ahead,” said Alisha Kang, president of the Union of National Employees. “The movement is done with the lipstick.”
After the liberal government intervened to end several high profile attacks in Ports, Rail Yards and Post Canada, that tension reached a new level last month when Air Canada hostesses Challenged the order to return to Ottawa’s work – With union leaders risking fines and time in jail.
An agreement was reached the next day.
Canadian unions marked Labor Day on Monday, when the fight for workers’ rights is traditionally celebrated, for a year that saw a changing landscape, which includes numerous strikes and several consecutive orders issued by the Government.
In a statement published on Labor Day, Prime Minister’s office said he is working with unions to “build Canada Strong.”
“The workers are in the heart of this mission,” said the statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney directed much of his electoral campaign that promised to support Canadian works. But Kang said that has not confirmed in his first months as Prime Minister.
“He is not our friend,” Kang said.
“He used us as a backdrop for photographs, but now when the rubber hits the road, he is not there to protect the workers.”
Kiavash Najafi, executive director of the Canadian Labor Congress, said that a growing number of workers is willing to support the votes of the strike.
“We face the loss of jobs due to commercial war. Younger people find it more difficult to find work. The cost of living continues to increase and people feel tight for that,” said Najafi, whose group represents more than three million unionized workers.
“People generally seem to have lost a lot of confidence in institutions and governments to be able to deliver results for them.”
According Canada StatisticsA burst of labor actions that this country has not experienced in decades took place after the height of the pandemic. In 2023, the most recent year statistics are publicly available, the number of days that did not work due to labor disputes increased to 6.6 million, the highest level since 1986.
More orders back to work
This wave in strikes has also proven to be a sticky problem for the federal government, which has often intervened under the pressure of employers and some members of the public, to send employees to work.
In the last two years, the liberals have greatly trusted in section 107 of the Canada Labor Code to end the main labor disputes, more recently in Air Canada. The legislation grants to the Minister of Jobs a unilateral power to intervene to maintain “industrial peace.”
The unions are taking Ottawa to the courts for the unprecedented use of those powers, sometimes days or even hours after a strike has begun, as a violation of the right of the letter to attack.
Najafi says that some of Carney’s decisions “have put it in a very difficult relationship with workers.”
Those include the prime minister’s order for civil service to reduce Operational spending by 15 percent By 2028. Unions say that job losses have already begun And they are talking about the cuts.
“We have had a fairly acute increase in labor mobilization that we have not seen in recent decades,” said Barry Eidlin, an expert in labor problems at McGill University.
“Once some started, you had a snowball effect.”
This occurs after years of decreased work and safety quality, intensified in recent years due to the cost of living that quickly exceed wages and a adjusted labor market after pandemic, he said.
Eidlin said there are no signs, but the impact of the commercial war on Canada’s economy has slowed that impulse.
He pointed to Air Canada hostesses that they challenge the order to return to work as evidence.
“They divered the trend and that made the employers return to the table,” he said. “That could establish a new precedent for other unions to continue fighting, but will also push the federal government to find other ways of ordering workers to work again.”
The Minister of Jobs, Patty Hajdu, said on Saturday afternoon that section 107 of the Canadian Labor Code has invoked to order the binding arbitration between Air Canada and its union and has ordered that the operations resume, hours after 10,000 hostesses were strike.
Job’s minister, Patty Hajdu, defended her decision to intervene less than 12 hours after the Air Canada strike began, saying that she did not make the call lightly, but that the Canadians had already paid a high price during other recent strikes.
“Although I know that some unions are angry, I know they know that we have done a lot of heavy work together and that the work will continue,” Hajdu said in an interview with CBC News on Monday.
The minister pointed out the decision of the liberal government to repeal the legislation of the Harper era that hindered the organization of the unions, together with the updates of the Labor Code and guarantee the days of illness in the sectors regulated by the federal government.
The work voice in Parliament
Hajdu also regularly refers to the liberal government that prohibits the use of replacement workers during a strike.
This legislation was one of the key policies presented as a result of the pressure of the NDP, in exchange for its support to the minority liberal government.
But now the new Democrats, seen as the traditional voice for work in Parliament Hill, are weaker than ever.
The NDP lost all but seven of its seats in the last elections, the worst performance of the party in its history. The race to replace former leader Jagmeet Singh began this week, with the game ready to choose a new leader in March.
Najafi, who previously worked for the Federal NDP, acknowledged that the unions now have less voice in the House of Commons to influence Carney’s government policies on workers’ rights.
“Unfortunately, that kind of leverage and power does not exist in this Parliament,” he said.
“[Workers] I want the government to succeed against Trump and his attacks against Canada. So we are ready to work with the government. “
