In the next provincial election, let’s protect the gains workers have made — and keep pushing for more

In the next provincial election, let’s protect the gains workers have made — and keep pushing for more

August 13, 2024

BC Fed

by Sussanne Skidmore and Hermender Singh Kailley

The next provincial election is coming this fall — and there’s a lot at stake for working people.

Along with communities around the world, BC is grappling with the rising cost of living, a housing crisis and longer waits for the services we rely on. These are big issues that require long-term solutions that put workers and our families front and centre.

As with every election, workers are looking at what the parties are offering. And we’re asking: who’s going to stand with us, not against us? Who’s going to keep us moving forward, instead of rolling back the gains we’ve made?

Those gains are making an important difference in working people’s lives. Together with the BC NDP government, first with John Horgan and now with David Eby, we’ve made crucial advances.

They include the highest provincial minimum wage in Canada — indexed to keep up with inflation. Five days of paid sick leave every year, so workers experiencing an illness don’t have to choose between paying the bills and staying home to get better. And we’ve won the same for workers experiencing domestic and sexual violence.

The list goes on:

  • Skilled trades certification to offer young people a rewarding career in the trades.
  • Regulations to protect workers and the public from asbestos, still the number one killer of workers in BC.
  • 5,000 health care workers brought back to the public system, turning low-paid, unstable jobs into good union jobs.
  • Stronger workers’ compensation protection and better benefits.
  • And fewer barriers to joining a union, with single-step union certification.

Advances like these are crucial — because working people need to keep making progress that addresses the challenges we’re facing in our daily lives.

We need to keep up the momentum on housing by curbing speculation and ensuring more rental suites are available, so that every single person can find a home they love and can afford.

We need to not only keep health care public, but make it better, and increase support for health care workers. And we need to build on the government’s recent pay transparency law with true pay equity, to close the unfair gender pay gap.

In difficult times, of course people are considering change. But here’s what it comes down to: who can you trust to take action to make things easier for you and your family?

Who will build housing for working families, instead of protecting rich speculators?

Who will invest in public health care, instead of privatizing it?

Who will make workplaces safer, instead of putting workers at risk?

With the BC Liberals (now “BC United” under Kevin Falcon) collapsing under the weight of their awful record in government, workers might look to John Rustad’s BC Conservatives to see if they might make life better. But if history has taught us anything, they won’t.

Because before they jumped ship to the BC Conservatives, Rustad and every one of his MLAs were enthusiastic BC Liberals. Rustad himself was a cabinet minister in Christy Clark’s government, helping to gut the services we rely on and turn housing over to speculators and big investors.

His record says clearly that he’d deliver a government where health care is privatized and where schools are starved of funding – and a worker’s right to join a union is undermined.

John Rustad, just like Kevin Falcon, is proud of his record and wants to double down. And given the chance, he will do it again. He won’t deliver a government that’s on the side of workers.

The wealthy and powerful — including many of our employers — would love to go back to the days when Rustad and Falcon’s party gave them everything they asked for. We can’t let that happen because we’ll all pay the price.

This October, you’ll get to cast your vote. And when you do, be sure to carefully consider each party’s record — and what it means for the future of this province and the people who call BC home.

The BC Federation of Labour has made it easy to check each party’s record at CheckTheRecord.ca.

Sussanne Skidmore is the president of the BC Federation of Labour.
Hermender Singh Kailley is the secretary-treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour