Letters to the editor
Labour Day in Toronto: ‘Even the Bolsheviks Have a Booth’
Ted Schmidt, Toronto
Volume 33 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 30, 2019
One of the biggest crowds in years, a sign of the times, the Doug Ford/Trump/neoliberal times. Even the Bolsheviks have a booth. This is how bad it has got and in front of me a horde of young people with socialist tee shirts. They look revved up and ready to go. They will join the veteran socialists, serious cats “all out against Ford.”
It took an hour for the Catholic Teachers’ flag to appear, so numerous were the unions walking and on flatbed trucks.
There was old Toronto represented by the wailing bagpipes. Connie Smythe and the 48th Highlanders opening night of the NHL season. A fleeting memory.
Then there were the steel bands from the Caribbean and the Funkmaster with a James Brown riff getting us ready for another Labour Day.
One of the biggest crowds in years, a sign of the times, the Doug Ford/Trump/neoliberal times. Even the Bolsheviks have a booth. This is how bad it has got and in front of me a horde of young people with socialist tee shirts. They look revved up and ready to go. They will join the veteran socialists, serious cats “all out against Ford.”
It took an hour for the Catholic Teachers’ flag to appear, so numerous were the unions walking and on flatbed trucks.
There was old Toronto represented by the wailing bagpipes. Connie Smythe and the 48th Highlanders opening night of the NHL season. A fleeting memory.
Then there were the steel bands from the Caribbean and the Funkmaster with a James Brown riff getting us ready for another Labour Day.
Here they come. The Power workers, the guys who climb the poles whom the million dollar bosses at Hydro can’t do without, the Boilermakers, the Carpenters, the Stagehands and IATSI and ACTRA, the men and women who produce so much needed culture which ennobles and defines us, the TTC workers, the underpaid and exploited Hotel workers, the more militant CUPE and CUPW postal workers, the Steelworkers and the recently unionized couriers.
And look over there a group of Danes offering solidarity and at last an increased number of teachers, public and separate walking together. We all have I am sure the great Toronto Labour Council's motto on the back of our shirts…I guess we are REDS for the day…and look here comes the Premier.
Organize, Educate, Resist!
Absent once again from the Catholic Teachers — everybody from headquarters, the high salaried 'leaders who have forgotten to lead, forgotten about the necessity of downward mobility for any serious disciple. What a blown opportunity. Pete Seeger, where are you when we need you? When will they ever learn?
No matter, a joyous turnout of younger teachers. Here comes a truck blasting music, the guitar intro I recognize, Billy Bragg. There is power in a factory, power in the land Power in the hands of a worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand. There is power in a Union. The Union forever defending our rights. There is power in a Union and a distinctly bad Ford Day.
Now the politicos do not miss a chance to get out among the people…Trudeau in Hamilton and Jagmeet Singh in Toronto. Where’s Andrew Scheer? Missing in Action because he’s attending a tailgate party in Hamilton. Talk about a guy out of touch. Tory and labour=chalk and cheese.
We turn the corner at Dufferin to head south to the Ex and there’s a real politician, Andrew Cash running to reclaim his federal seat in Davenport. Solidarity forever.
All I could think about on this beautiful September day of solidarity was what Rabbi Heschel felt when he walked in Selma in 1965
I thought that my legs were praying.
Ted Schmidt taught high school inimitably at Neil McNeill High School in Toronto for decades.
Ted Schmidt, Toronto