Labour Day Focus-Corporate Greed and its impact on communities

Labour Day 2024 took on a whole new look in North Bay.

Gone is the traditional waterfront festivities complete with free barbecue, inflatables, and information booths.

The North Bay and District Labour Council which normally hosts the event, is undergoing a rebuilding phase, resulting in a revamped version of the day, due to retirements and family obligations.  

See: No Labour Day Picnic this year

Unions typically use Labour Day to advocate for the rights of workers.

This year, roughly a dozen people, some carrying union flags stating "Respect us, Protect us," Pay Us" walked to City Hall, then on to the constituency offices of Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli and Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota, leaving notes and giving speeches along the way.

This year’s theme focused on corporate greed.

” Politicians are bent on privatizing many public institutions, that bring in money that pay for services such as health care and affordable housing. They’re intent on selling off any public assets that bring in money to support the programs of Ontario that go back to the people of Ontario,” stated Arlene Phillips, acting president, vice-president, and treasurer of the North Bay and District Labour Council.

In addressing the small crowd gathered outside City Hall, Deputy Mayor Maggie Horsfield reflected on where the labour movement came from and where it is headed.

“And recognizing that the root causes of a lot of the challenges we’re seeing in our communities are based on a need for more support and more strategies from all levels of government, to address wage insecurity, the wage gap, rent stabilization and supporting social programs.”

From City Hall, it was off to Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli’s office, where post-it notes were placed on his office door, expressing various concerns, including privatization, two-tier health care, supporting public nurses, and affordable housing.   

Among those asked to speak was Dennis Chippa, executive director of the Gathering Place who spoke to this year’s theme and the impact “corporate greed” has on the community.

He shared what he sees when people struggle with increased costs of food, utilities, and rent, or when salaries are clawed back or jobs are eliminated.  

“All those things have happened. Whether it is hospital cuts, funding cuts in schools, funding cuts in Corrections, or funding cuts anywhere. When those cuts happen so that we can feed the corporate greed, in many cases the people who end up the victims of it, come to our place. So, that’s how we are tied in. We’re usually the response when there is corporate greed,” stated Chippa.  

“Do we get support from some of the corporations? Some, a lot of the local businesses do, but it is not corporates.”

The trickle-down effect for the Gathering Place is that as of Tuesday, September 3, the Gathering Place will only be able to provide one meal a day, Monday through Friday, versus three meals a day.

“They’re getting just the one because, at the same time, the corporates don’t trickle down to our place. The vast majority of donors that we get are people who are middle class. Really rich people are never afraid they’re going to catch poor. They might catch a disease, but they won’t catch poor. So, they donate to a lot of disease-related charities or political charities. So, it is hard to find corporate support. It is hard to find that kind of money.”

Without proper funding, the Gathering Place was forced to lay off six people last week.  

“So, we’re going to be very scaled down. I think there are three full-time staff now to prepare the meals, do the food rescue, and help the community as best we can, because the vulnerable people haven’t gone away. So, we’ve been scrambling, trying to figure out how we’re going to do it.”        

Arlene Phillips explained the need for the march and the stops along the way, bringing attention to “big, greedy corporations.”

“Government sets the laws such as minimum wage, or anti-scab labour. Each level of government helps in different ways, so we tried to tie them all together because we need to have an impact there to make the changes,” explained Phillips.

“We need to make those politicians aware that the people want more. We want to have a living wage, we want to be able to afford housing, and we want to eat decent meals, three times a day. Stuff like that is why we need to lobby our politicians to make changes for people.”

The crowd also heard from union leaders about negotiations.

Moving forward, Phillps would like to see a return to the traditional Labour Day activities in North Bay, where hundreds of people, working and retired would attend with their children or grandchildren.

“Come out and get active in your labour council on a regular basis to support the Labour Council when we ask for assistance,” stated Phillips.

“The usual thing that happens at the waterfront is huge and wonderful and I would love to go back to that so I’m asking everybody to think about recruiting two friends, to come out and help.”