Organizers of a May Day rally attended by about 50 people in Memorial Park May 1 have a number of demands as we head into a provincial election.
Those include a $20 minimum wage, permanent paid sick days, housing for all, decent work, well-funded public services, livable income support for all, climate justice, an end to racism, status for all, compensation for workers harmed on the job, funding for autism service, and the repeal of Bill 124 (which restricts wage increases for public sector workers).
Many of them holding flags or signs, attendees listened to speeches, enjoyed a pizza lunch and held a short rally on Paris Street.
Among those attending the event in honour of May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, were local MPPs Jamie West and France Gélinas, as well as David Farrow, the Liberal candidate for Sudbury in the upcoming provincial election, as well as David Robinson, who will be representing the Green party in Sudbury.
A large number of topics were covered by speakers, including autism funding, poverty and homelessness, Laurentian University’s ongoing insolvency restructuring, health care, occupational health and safety and the plight of gig workers.
“After two years in this pandemic, workers in this province, we're tired, and we're angry and we need a government who's gonna put workers first, plain and simple,” said Darcy Gauthier, vice-president of the Sudbury and District Labour Council.
With a provincial election coming up, Gauthier said people should focus on making sure that workers are put first in this province, whether they work for a union or not.
Scott Florence, executive director of the Sudbury Workers’ Education and Advocacy Centre, said provincial election candidates are going to be talking about “great jobs, steady jobs.”
“I'm here to tell you, they're not going to come, they're not going to come because the trend has continued on for part time work, for unsteady works and contract work,” Florence said.
In 2019, the library of the Parliament of Canada published a report that said 48 per cent of workers were engaged in some kind of precarious work.
“In the last decade, here in Ontario, workers that are earning the minimum wage have doubled,” Florence said. “Our workers need support more than ever.”
A man named Karanbir Badhesha, who said he was representing local Skip the Dishes workers, said these non-unionized workers recently held a one-day strike, claiming they weren’t being properly compensated amid high fuel prices.
“There are about 500 plus Skip The Dishes drivers who do it full time or part time,” said Badhesha.
“During COVID, you see the sacrifices and the help they're brought us. Most of the Skip drivers were the first responders that were working day and night to bring the food to the table of lots of our families here in Sudbury.”
As she addressed those gathered in Memorial Park, which was recently cleared of a homeless encampment, Laurie McGauley of the Poverty and Housing Advocacy Coalition said “homelessness is terror of being so obviously abandoned by the rest of society.”
Most people are just two paycheques away from not being able to pay their rent or mortgage.
When those two months are over, then we need a social safety net.
But McGauley said society has allowed government to “decimate its social safety net,” adding that the $700 a month for Ontario Works and $1,200 a month Ontario Disability Support Program recipients get “are recipes for homelessness.”
“The next provincial government needs to finally step up and take responsibility for the crisis in poverty and homelessness in our province,” McGauley said.
Her group has a number of demands for the next provincial government, including an increase to social assistance rates and providing more affordable housing.
