May Day: Their fight is our fight.
International Worker’s Day serves as a reminder of how we all benefit from past gains made by workers and their unions as well as our own responsibility to workers everywhere. Too easily, we can take for granted successes of the past, like paid sick leave, job security, occupational health and safety, the grievance process, the right to be represented, and the right to have a say in our working conditions and vote on our collective agreements.
When we take these rights for granted, we risk losing them. We only need to look to the janitors on campus to be reminded that workplace rights are fragile and need constant vigilance. BCIT has stood by while Best Service Pros and the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) locked the custodians into a 10-year sweetheart deal without any opportunity for the workers to have a say in the matter. BCIT should not allow workers on our campus to be treated with such disregard.
The people who keep our facilities healthy, safe, and functional need our solidarity. Failing to support the Justice for Janitors campaign would mean accepting that workplace rights can be signed away by unscrupulous companies and their accomplices. This May Day, the BCITFSA stands with Service Employees International Union Local 2 in its fight for fair collective bargaining for the most vulnerable workers on campus. When their rights are sacrificed, ours become more fragile. As their working conditions improve, ours gets better. When their security and social condition improves, our society becomes stronger. Their fight is our fight. What we ask for ourselves, we wish for all.
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