Toronto demanding zero tolerance for racism at work

BY OMNIYA ALI

Living in fear seems to have become the norm for many people of colour in the West. In recent events this has been taken to an extent that has not been reached in a while. On June 10^th a sickening act of racism occurred at a construction site at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto. Two nooses were hung in an attempt to make people of colour once again feel unwelcomed and overpowered. Shortly after, on June 25^th and 26^th more nooses were found again on two other construction sites in Toronto. In the wake of the uprising associated with the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor incidents, people have taken every opportunity to publicly demonstrate their hatred and animosity towards the black community.

Despite that, the black community continues to rise above and stand with justice. The Toronto & York Region Labour Council has shown nothing but support and solidarity subsequent to these recent events. They have united to call for zero tolerance against racism at workplaces and in our communities.

In an interview with John Cartwright, President of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council and Chris Campbell, Executive of the Carpenters Union Local 79, the current state of racism, and future actions were discussed. An agreement was reached that in order for any improvement to occur as Mr. Campbell put it “whether it be the government or company officials, at all levels, first they must acknowledge that systematic racism exists. They must acknowledge that some of the normal practices were bad, were not acceptable, were literally hurting black folks in their companies or keeping them out of their companies.” Oblivion and entitlement will not only act as barriers between us and optimal justice, but they will also make us move back in the wrong direction.

As mentioned by Mr. Cartwright, “the province of Ontario has stepped far back, when this provincial government got in, the Ford government, they scrapped the reworking of the curriculum in schools that was designed to address deeply the issues of racism and the issues of Indigenous people. They basically made it clear that they have no interest in siding with communities who are concerned about the nature of policing and profiling.” Once again, the justice of people of colour is depending on them and their allies, with little to no support from those in power.

However, although it seems that way, Mr. Cartwright emphasized that we must also recognize the background with which the way has been modeled. Leaders within the industry such as Bromley Armstrong, Hassan Yussuff and many others have paved the way for more welcoming environments for people of colour. Their legacies can continue to influence the movement through “building solidarity, being conscious, identifying the deeply flawed elements of our system and working hard and building alliances to fix them”, Cartwright.

In order to move forward and alleviate this unsettling atmosphere of racism and fear Mr. Cartwright has listed specific issues to be achieved:

• “Condemning hate crimes in the workplaces and demanding full criminal prosecution, we’re thankful that EllisDon and Daniels have come out and done this explicitly in that way. But there’s a lot of other folks who are kind of looking at their toes when this issue comes up and try not to say anything. We want them to actually condemn this, make it clear.
• Develop a joint labour management plan for every workplace to challenge systemic racism and commit to ensure the workplace is free, and that takes some work. In some cases, the employer would say we don’t have time, we just have to get this job done. It used to be the same excuse for safety, when we were getting people killed every week on a job site, and they’d say we don’t have time to turn that ladder into a proper scaffolding situation, let’s just move ahead.
• We want to see the use of community benefits agreements that increases the hiring of racialized workers. 
• The last thing we’re suggesting is our charter of inclusive workplace and communities, we think the more organizations endorse that formally, the more anyone walking into the workplace will look at that and understand the values of the workplace.”

Racism has continued to appear in different forms over the years, as Mr. Campbell said “it takes a lot of courage for people to bring this forward because we have a history of not even letting in black workers in the different construction unions, and now you’re in and you’re facing all this negativity over the years.” We must make an extra effort to provide employment and normalize the variety of demographics in the industry to terminate the expectation for homogeneity.