2025 LABOUR DAY
Historically, union workers celebrated the day with various activities including parades, speeches, games, amateur competitions and picnics. The holiday promoted working-class solidarity and belonging during a time of rapid industrialization. The event served as a forum for unions to voice their demands. But it also helped build working-class identity and allowed time for rest and socializing outside the workplace. For the last while, fewer and fewer union members have participated in Labour Day activities.
For the many past years unions have participated in Labour Day events hosted by CLC Labour Councils. These events are community-based events and we will continue to support them. This year Local 2009 in partnership with like-minded unions, wants to host a different Labour Event that follows the CLC events as an "after hours" event. The event is intended specifically for union members and their direct families. It is not intended as a community event. There will be speakers that talk about our union history, our successes our upcoming challenges. We will play union trivia games and award prizes. We will have live music with an established band and rent equipment so that union members can join the band and play. We will have a prize for the best original union song performed. It will be a fun participatory union event that has a strong educational component that encourages participation in our union.
Labour Day, the first Monday in September, has been an official holiday in Canada since 1894. The origin of Labour Day came 20 years before that, when unions started holding parades and rallies in Toronto and Ottawa to celebrate the 1872 Toronto printers’ strike – the original “fight for fairness” that won major changes including the decriminalization of unions in Canada.
This Labour Day on September 1st , 2025, we plan to celebrate the achievements of union workers, past and present, that make BC and Canada great and keep our country running. We need to remember and highlight for the many that have forgotten, thanks to the labour movement, workers have weekends, 8-hour workdays, paid overtime, a minimum wage, breaks during work, the right to strike, workplace safety standards, and child labour laws. This Labour Day we will recommit to growing the union movement in this province and our country.
On this Labour Day, we will not let people forget that the CEOs of corporate grocery chains, Big Oil and Big Pharma continue to make record profits while workers struggle to feed their families and pay the rent. The top 1% have rigged the system. The only solution to restore respect so working families can live and retire in dignity and security is to join a union, join our union.
This Labour Day we will celebrate the successes we have had as a united front against oppressive employers and politicians. Union members and their families will enjoy live music, have the opportunity to participate in the live music, free food and drink, lots of union trivia games and prizes and even a prize for composing the best union song. All union members will receive a special Labour Day hat and t-shirt and will be encouraged to wear their union apparel proudly
