BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: Education unions 'asking all folks to subsidize' incomes,' published Oct. 3.
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I encourage you all to not accept the world Gord Crawford accurately describes where people need to have more than one job just to get by.
Not that long ago, wages from a single job were usually enough to buy a home, a car and whatever else you needed and have a disposable income on top of that.
Inflation in tandem with decreases in tax rates for the wealthy and corporations have resulted in our present reality where people make substantially less than in previous years when adjusted for inflation, and government continues to claim to not have enough money to pay for anything like fair wage increases or to not install minimum-wage increases that align with inflation.
The influence of corporate wealth on our political system has made it impossible for workers to keep pace with the cost of living and unions are literally the only tool available to workers to try and restore this imbalance.
I encourage you to not be like Gord Crawford and tear down the hard work that people have put into creating unionized workspaces, because we all currently are benefiting from the work unions have done. The five-day work week was won by unions. Breaks at work, including lunch breaks, were won by unions. The eight-hour workday was won by unions. Child labour laws were won by unions. Family and medical leaves were won by unions. Unemployment insurance was won by unions.
All these union victories are now legislated for all workers in Ontario because of unions.
If you are sick of working two or three jobs because your wage hasn’t moved with inflation, putting the work into establishing and maintaining a union in your workplace is how you get out of this. Unions give workers additional protections and collective bargaining rights that create fair working conditions including fair pay.
If you are sick of working two or three jobs, support the education workers’ and teachers' unions and witness what happens when people work together to improve the lives of many. Don’t be like Gord and tear down their hard work because you are helping legitimize the need to work two or three jobs and that only makes it worse for everyone when you do.
Kelly Ayers
Barrie
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