M'Aidez

2003-05-01 - 4:27 a.m.

May the first is International Workers Day (meaning an international day for workers, not a day for international workers, like flight attendants...um, but I think they qualify as workers, too. But they're international, in a way. And hugely underpaid. Ahem.)

It's meant to celebrate the accomplishments and victories that workers around the world have earned. Things like minimum wages, work safety, pensions. As much as I like to point out where we are failing each other, I will admit, gladly, that we are still ahead of where we were two generations ago. However...

Yesterday on CBC radio I listened to an interview with a woman who had just been fired by her employers for whom she was a nanny and housekeeper. They fired her because they were afraid that she would bring SARS into their household. She was dismissed with no compensation and, really, no warning. She was canned with a choice "If you leave this house, don't come back."

As a part of the interview, she described her job. During the week, she lived at her employers' house. She started work (including caring for their 9 year old daughter) at 7am and worked until 7pm, five days a week. On the weekends, she and three of her friends shared a room or apartment so that they could all get away from their workspace for some gossip, some karaoke, a chance to let their hair down. She said that she got paid (I can't remember if this was gross or net) $1000 a month.

While I was listening to the rest of her interview, I did some math and found that she was - based on 12-hour shifts, five shifts a week, assuming 4 weeks per month - getting paid somewhere around $4/hour.

She is new to Canada, and had been working as a part of her immigration procedures. She, and many others like her, is required to work here for two years out of a total of three in order to get a perminant visa. Losing her job means that she risks getting deported when her three years are up. She was fired a month or so ago and hasn't yet found a place.

Workers have made great gains around the world, and her story, while upsetting, is just one of a million stories like it and worse. Children in sweatshops provide the labour for Western products, farmers starve to provide us with cheap food. Beatings, blackmail, deaths from poor working conditions...these happen every day.

And even here at home, decisions are being made that will inevitavbly harm workers. There's an entire social class of people who work at wages that just barely give them enough to eat. These people are one downsize, one illness, one injury away from being homeless or hungry. One paycheque from becoming a statistic.

The solutions to these problems are sometimes easy to see, and sometimes they're complex...the thing is, there -are- solutions.

Today is a day for all of us to remember that most of the world is comprised of "workers." The world was built on their (and our) shoulders. Yet somehow, it remains the "workers" lot to not enjoy the bulk of their labour.

Think about the workers in your neighbourhood, as well as those elsewhere. Give some thought to who they are.

Happy May Day.

Cheers,

The Magus

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