Trudeau chased from labour day events with booing and protest
On Labour Day Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a hasty retreat from two Hamilton labour events after being greeted with boos, pickets and anti-Liberal chants.
The Prime Minister was walking in the labour day parade with members of the Labourers International Union of North America, the union that backed Doug Ford in last year’s provincial election.
Trudeau leaves labour day parade under protest
However, according to a facebook post by Anthony Marco, president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, as the parade kicked off at 10:30am, transit workers and postal workers, who were ahead of the Labourers in the parade, turned around to block Trudeau from advancing.
Transit and postal workers were joined by another group protesting Trudeau’s failure to clean up the Grassy Narrows mercury pollution, according to Marco.
Last year, Liberals and Conservatives voted together to strip postal workers of their constitutionally-protected right to free collective bargaining and have taken a series of anti-labour acts.
Video from the parade shows the blockade, with participants chanting “Harper, Trudeau, Andrew Scheer, same bullshit, different year.”
After pickets held Trudeau from advancing for about 20 minutes, he left in his SUV convoy.
“Hey-hey, ho-ho, Justin Trudeau’s got to go”
About an hour later, Trudeau and his security detail of about 20 officers arrived at the Hamilton labour picnic at Bayfront Park where the Prime Minister was again greeted by the protest of Hamilton labour activists.
At the park, labour activists chanting “hey-hey, ho-ho, Justin Trudeau’s got to go,” again protested Trudeau while plain-clothed police in the Prime Minister’s security group pushed through protesters.
After about five minutes at the labour picnic, Trudeau left.
In addition to taking away postal workers’ bargaining rights, Trudeau’s term included a number of anti-worker moves.
The billionaire owner of Sears was allowed to leave workers with unfunded pensions despite taking billions in special dividends from the company. In 2018, Trudeau put up no objection to General Motors’ plan to shutter its Oshawa, Ontario assembly plants.
NDPs Singh pledges to increase the minimum wage
In contrast, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was well-received at the Hamilton and Toronto labour parades, and earlier in the day announced his commitment to increase the minimum wage, stop strike scabs and improve protections for part-time and contract workers.
The Trudeau Liberals have refused to increase federal minimum wage. Despite previously voting in favour of banning scabs, shortly after forming government Trudeau and Liberal MPs voted against NDP legislation to ban employer use of replacement workers.