John Cartwright: Key Player in War on Poverty
The following is from an Op-Ed by John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. He wrote this op-ed while I worked for the Council as a communications consultant. It was printed in the Toronto Star on January 17, 2008.
The notion of a just society is at the heart of Canadian life. In a sense it is the Canadian dream, centring more on the collective spirit than on mere individualism. Building on this dream, we created institutions that helped extend fairness and opportunity to everyone. Universal health care, quality public schools, unemployment insurance and a strong social safety net are just some of the examples of what was undertaken in the past.
For working people, the best anti-poverty program has been collective action to improve wages and benefits. Unions have historically played this role by providing workers with a means for collective action – often across entire sectors of the economy. Manufacturing jobs were once only a source of poverty wages, until the mass unionization efforts of the 1940s. Governments in Canada and the U.S. created a legal framework to curtail the power of business and create some balance in the workplace. Today, extending the voice that unions provide to more workers across the economy is a crucial building block in the campaign against poverty. read more
