Mayor Pond to Labour Leaders: Focus on Growth
Growth. That’s the one word that Mayor Pond asked a group of labour union leaders to focus on, when asked last spring to advise local unions on how to best meet the needs of local residents.
Prince Rupert’s mayor was speaking as part of a panel of elected officials representing federal, provincial, and municipal government in our region. He was the only official there prepared to provide a straight-forward answer to the question. (The other elected officials were politely hesitant to give advice to their hosts – the labour unions that had organized the forum.)
At the time, Mayor Pond’s answer to this question surprised me, but not because I haven’t heard him talk about growth before. What stood out was his willingness to speak directly to labour unions and to ask us to do something that we don’t always know how to embrace: Economic growth.
Unions rightly focus on wage gains for their members, improvements in working conditions, and workers’ safety. Yes, unions support a strong economy, good wages, and economic growth. But the “language of economic growth” is usually left to the Chamber of Commerce crowd, not to the labour activists. Maybe it’s time that we retake this part of our movement back, and get back to fighting for the kind of economy that supports high-wage jobs, economic security, and productively gains.
Mayor Pond wasn’t trying to be provocative, at least it didn’t seem that way to me. He was making a serious ask. One that I’ve thought a lot about since facilitating the Labour Council’s forum last spring. What does it mean for unions to focus on growth for our city?
Focusing on Growth Shifts Attention Away from Distractions and to Wages, Working Conditions, Economic Security, Safety, Etc.
For one thing, it means making growth a priority. And that means shifting our attention away from some of the distractions that prevent us from paying attention to a bread and butter issue like economic growth. It also challenges us to back industry, working with industry as an equal partner. Growth that results in good jobs, protected by strong unions, made possible through productive industries, will be good for our city and the people who live and work here.
Asking labour to focus on growth also invites us to think about growth in more ways than one. A bigger economy alone won’t solve the challenges our city faces. Nor will a larger population alone. We need both. And to do that, growth has to be combined with good wages, growth in productively, and strong partnerships between sectors, labour, and industries.
The forum was organized by the Labour Council — to bring labour union leaders at the local and provincial levels, and political representatives at three government levels, together to discuss how we can work as partners for the benefit of working families. Not much new was shared by most of the officials present, at least not from officials from outside our region. And a lot of what was shared reflected views that don’t match what our community needs, such as hot-button social media politics, and bumper sticker slogans from times past.
In the midst of this were the stand out comments by Mayor Pond, who asked local union leaders to get on board with growth, to work with the city, with industry, and with each other to help the city grow its economy and population.
Building Growth Requires Practical Priorities
The mayor also discussed practical things that need to happen for the rebuilding of Prince Rupert. Things like: Build public infrastructure, improve quality of life, get behind industry, align various levels of government with meeting our city’s needs, focus on transportation of goods and transmission of energy, and build an economy based in high-wage jobs, done by people who want to live and work in our city.
I heard echoes of Mayor Pond’s comments from last spring in his comments at the most recent City Council meeting. In his “roundtable” comments, held at the end of each meeting, the mayor once again focused on practical ways for government, industry, and labour to work together. He mentioned the need for public and private infrastructure, conversations between labour unions, government, and the Port Authority on the port tax cap, and specific measures to help Prince Rupert be a leading port city for Canada and the rest of North America.
Working together is the only way that we can rebuild our city’s capacity to provide services, housing, infrastructure, jobs, and industry for the people here. Working together requires that all levels of government work together for the people here, that labour and industry work together for the people here, and that we take seriously the value of bringing in different points of view, building trust between partners, and focusing on a pro-growth strategy to build a strong economy for our community.
