The BC Liberal government should not be considering discarding any laws that protect working people, CUPE has told a provincial committee reviewing employment standards.
“Employment standards legislation is the only thing that protects many working people from ruthless exploitation,” says CUPE BC president Barry O’Neill.
“This government must put people before profits and resist the business lobby’s demand for a return to the master-servant relationships of earlier, less-civilized centuries.”
If anything, government should strengthen employment standards “in the best interest of workers, businesses, our families and our communities,” O’Neill says.
Earlier in the week, CUPE BC called on the government to protect water quality by ensuring adequate staff and public control.
“Public ownership and management of water is the best way to ensure safe, reliable and accessible water,” O’Neill says. “British Columbians are not prepared to give private business control of monitoring, distribution or pricing of our water.”
CUPE supports the creation of a Drinking Water Agency to protect drinking water from source to tap. “It just makes sense to protect our drinking water in the watersheds or in the ground at the point of origin, rather than trying to rehabilitate it later,” says O’Neill.