While a new tentative deal may have been reached between the two sides involved in a labour dispute impacting thousands of B.C. port workers, experts say Canada may not have seen the last of strikes this year.
From the B.C. port strike to the recent Greater Toronto Area Metro workers’ strike to the writers’ strike in the U.S., rising costs of living, high corporate profits and dissatisfaction among workers may all be contributing to collective action across sectors.
Simon Black, associate professor of labour studies at Brock University, said that while these present-day examples may not be at the same level as the strike waves of the 1970s and the late 1940s, all signs point towards large-scale dissatisfaction.
0:40 B.C. port strike: Union members to vote on tentative deal by Friday
“Workers have seen their real wages, their purchasing power, eroding a great deal under this inflationary period. And yet, large corporations have made record gains, while working class households have struggled. I think there’s good evidence that the corporate profits and not workers’ wages have contributed disproportionately to inflation,” Black said.
Moshe Lander, economics professor at Concordia University, said the latest strike waves are driven by a desire to recover some of the lost purchasing power.
“You’re having, essentially, a showdown that’s dealing with how we recover the lost money or the redistribution of that money during high inflation.”
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For 13 days this month beginning July 1, some 7,400 port workers at 30 ports in B.C. walked off the job, stalling billions worth of cargo from moving in or out at some of Canada’s busiest terminals. A tentative deal was reached late Sunday night, which labour minister Seamus O’Regan said would mean “long-term stability”.
“We know sometimes labour negotiations can be extremely difficult, but every step of the way, Minister O’Regan has been there to encourage people at the table to make sure that we’re getting towards a solution,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said while speaking to reporters on Monday.
“And yes, there have been concerns and worries about how things are unfolding over the past days, but we now have a situation where there is another offer, there is another potential deal on the table, and we’re, as always, hopeful that that negotiation at the bargaining table continues to be at the centre of what everyone needs to continue to do.”
On Friday, Metro grocery stores across the Greater Toronto Area shut down as thousands of grocery store employees went on strike. Unifor, the largest private-sector union, says some 3,700 front-line store employees walked off the job just after midnight.
It says members of Local 414 rejected a tentative labour deal reached last week, but provided few other details. In a statement on Friday, Metro said it was “extremely disappointed that its unionized employees at 27 Metro locations across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) rejected the agreement reached last week and decided to go on strike effective July 29, even though the union bargaining committee unanimously recommended the agreement to its members.”
2:36 Metro grocery store strike in the Toronto-area for the third straight day
This recent wave of strikes come as Canadian workers are feeling the pinch of higher costs.
A PwC survey released on Monday found 42 per cent of Canadian workers say that while their household can pay its bills, they have nothing left over for savings.
Another 14 per cent say their household struggles to pay its bills.
“Work pressures are also acute, with only 22% saying their workload was often or usually manageable in the last 12 months. Many of these issues have been ongoing for some time, but anadditional force of disruption emerged this year with the very rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence,” the report said.
In addition to cost of living concerns, Lander said the Screen Actors Guild strike in the United States is an illustration of how anxieties around the use of artificial intelligence could also be contributing to labour action.
Black said workers’ strike action will continue unless economic conditions change.
“I think if these conditions persist — tight labour markets and inflation — workers are going to continue to make demands of their employers, unionized workers, and likely exercise their right to strike. Because they are going to have to play catch–up now.”
He said purchasing power of the working class has eroded so much that easing inflation may not help, either.
“Even if we see a loosening of labour markets, even if we continue to see inflation decline, we’ll continue to see workers willing … to go on strike to push their demands.”
However, some measures, such as grocery prices, remained high.
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Black said that while only employees in unionized workplaces are likely to strike, all workers across the Canadian economy are feeling the pinch of rising costs of living.
Employers, however, have asked striking unions to not be unreasonable in their demands. In April, during the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) strike, then-Treasury Board president Mona Fortier had said PSAC should be “prepared to compromise” to reach a deal with the federal government because it can’t “write a blank cheque” to them.
According to Black, workers may not respond well to such appeals.
“Workers aren’t dumb,” he said. “They know the record profits of the likes of Loblaws and Metro.”
Lander said the pandemic only exacerbated this feeling of inequality.
“Having come out of COVID, workers are angry because it’s now unacceptable that shareholders who were able to passively sit at home and not have to put themselves on the front line of the years of COVID and what that could do, they’re saying, well, now I want that share for me.”
Loblaw, which was accused of profiteering off of high food inflation, defended itself in February.
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“Retail prices are not growing faster than costs, the company is not taking advantage of inflation to drive profit,” Loblaw CFO Richard Dufresne had said in an earnings call in February. Earlier this month, while reporting its latest quarterly earnings, the grocer blamed high supplier costs for rising food prices.
High food inflation had little impact on the profits of Metro Inc., which rose by 10.4 per cent last quarter.
Rising cost of living is not the only factor making public anger worse. Lander said that record temperatures this summer aren’t helping. “People tend to be angrier, tend to be more frustrated easily, tend to be more exhausted during periods of extreme heat,” he said.
Black and Lander agreed that strikes in one sector could have a domino effect on other sectors.
“If a public sector union can negotiate a 12-per cent wage increase over three years and another union goes to their employers and say, I want the 12 per cent over three or I want more than 12 per cent over three, how does the employer turn around and say, no, you can’t have that when another union’s already agreed to it?,” Lander said.
Black added: “This is what happens when we see a strike action. We see workers learning from other workers.”
“There’s a knock-on effect that other workers see that and learn from that. And so yes, we can see this kind of this kind of activity spread throughout the economy, to different sectors.”
— with files from The Canadian Press and Global News’ Aaron D’Andrea
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
