Minister can learn from local labour leaders

I got to know Dave Ervin, steelworker and philosopher, soon after I took on my role at Cape Breton University.

That stage of my life followed an earlier career promoting labour and human rights, and ending conflict, a career in which I met and worked with many fascinating leaders.

One of those leaders was Cape Breton coal miner Donald MacDonald, by that time president of the body which brought together all the world’s free trade union movements.

He and Dave, each in their own way, were important at the workplace, and they are important right now.

Canada, the United States and Mexico are re-negotiating trade relations between them and our Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has said that, in this process, Canada will seek to strengthen NAFTA’s protection of labour rights.

I hope that in pursuing this goal, she keeps in mind the life and times of Donald and Dave, and seeks the advice of the UN’s unique agency, the International Labour Organization, which brings together not only governments but also labour and business organizations.

The member states of the ILO have included Canada, the United States, and Mexico from the time of the ILO’s founding in the peace process which began to build a new world order after the carnage of the First World War.

When the end of the Second World War was in sight, the ILO held a conference in Philadelphia; the government representatives, employers, and trade unionists gathered there adopted a hugely significant charter, known to history as the Declaration of Philadelphia.

With the briefest of preambles, the Declaration boldly stated that Labour is Not a Commodity, and emphasized that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere. Donald MacDonald, coal miner, and Dave Ervin, steelworker, knew this, and lived it.

If only our political leaders everywhere would keep this in mind, particularly when reworking agreements on trade between their, and our, countries.

Canada, the United States and Mexico have worked well together over the years to give meaning to the ILO, and took pride in passing the Declaration of Philadelphia.

Now is the time for them to show, in their re-negotiation of NAFTA, that the two pillars of that Declaration, Labour is NOT a Commodity, and, yes, prosperity everywhere is endangered by poverty anywhere must inform and guide their efforts. This certainly guided Dave Ervin. Beggaring thy neighbour was a discredited practice ages ago; let’s not revive it, especially in these troubled times.

I urge Minister Freeland and her counterparts to take strength from the life and times of Donald MacDonald and Dave Ervin and bring to life the Declaration of Philadelphia, before our times worsen, and troubles multiply. John Harker Lunenburg