(Support) Labour Day!

2014 has been unprecedented in labour history, and not necessarily for the better. The fight for minimum wage continues among fast food and retail workers. In Canada, issues around the Temporary Foreign Worker program ignited earlier this year after a complaint filed by an former employee at fast food outlet in British Columbia. The resulting backlash against foreign workers had a predictably racist and xenophobic tone. Meanwhile, as we were reminded this past April 28 (National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed on the Job), health and safety standards for these and other workers in Canada still have some ways to go.

As I write this, the BC Teachers' Federation and the provincial government are in a deadlock, with a predictable increase in frustration and resentment directed towards the teachers as it tends to be directed with any public sector workers; health care, government employees, libraries and archives, etc. The decades old mantra "public is bad, private is good" continues.

This Labour Day, let us not forget the valuable work all workers do, and that workers are people, indeed workers are us. Learn some labour history today, but most importantly, support workers movements. They (we) need all the support you can give us.