They made doors, gum and jerry cans. Ontario’s ‘essential’ workers in manufacturing accounted for more workplace COVID deaths than any other sector — even health care.
On April 13, Health Minister Christine Elliott ordered companies to temporarily close, ban employee travel, and restrict work-from-home.
In late June, Ontario issued a temporary emergency order banning the reopening of “essential businesses,” including all manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, food processing, wholesale and retail trade.
The order applied to all businesses that reported April jobs in the past three months, with no exceptions.
There has been no mass closure of Ontario manufacturing.
But, in the four weeks after the provincial mandate was lifted, five workers have died in Ontario from COVID-19.
When we talk about workers’ rights, we talk about workers’ rights to organize, to bargain, to strike, to be paid decently, to have safe work sites and decent pay.
We talk about workers’ rights in the workplace, like safe and healthy workplaces, and workplace protections for workers who are not only able, but willing to wear a mask.
We talk about workers’ rights at the ballot box, and the fundamental principle of workers’ rights is that people have the right to organize and to make and join collective bargaining agreements.
We talk about workers’ rights to unionize, and the fundamental principle of union rights is that people have the right to be represented by a union.
And we talk about workers’ rights to strike, and the fundamental principle of striking is that people have the right to refuse to do work that they don’t want, to take action when they don’t agree with an employer’s decision, or to demand better terms and conditions.
We’ve talked about workers’ rights in health care, in the media, and in government.
And when we talk about workers’ rights, we talk about workers’ rights to health care and to social protection.
We talk about workers’ rights in the workplace, like safe and healthy workplaces, and workplace protections for workers who are not only able, but willing to wear a mask.
We talk about workers’ rights in the workplace, like safe and healthy workplaces, and workplace protections for workers who are not only able, but willing to do