The Throne Speech falls short on worker commitments – United Steelworkers

/EIN News/ -- United Steelworkers union (USW) National Director, Marty Warren, issued the following statement:

TORONTO, May 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yesterday’s Throne Speech included some encouraging commitments – on industrial strategy, housing and infrastructure – that, if delivered properly, could lay the foundation for good union jobs and stronger communities. But with workers facing rising costs, economic uncertainty and mounting pressure from U.S. trade aggression, the federal government must move swiftly from vision to action, ensuring workers are central to every decision.

We welcome the government’s stated ambition to create high-quality, skilled trades careers, invest in affordable housing built with Canadian workers and domestic materials and position Canada as a global leader in clean energy. These are good priorities. But what matters now is how they are implemented and whether working people are meaningfully involved from day one. Bringing labour to the table isn’t symbolic – it’s how workers’ priorities are delivered.

The Steelworkers union represents tens of thousands of members in industrial, manufacturing and resource sectors – those on the front lines of global trade shocks and job loss. These workers expected more clarity on how Canada will respond to Trump’s escalating tariffs and defend jobs under threat. The speech’s broader economic vision must be backed by concrete measures to protect Canadian industries, enforce fair trade and ensure public dollars create public value and good, unionized jobs.

We also welcome the government’s recognition of Canada’s need for economic self-reliance in an increasingly unstable world. Identifying major nation-building projects is a step in the right direction, and so is the acknowledgment that building Canada’s future means investing in infrastructure and innovation.

However, key pieces remain missing. There is no commitment to reform Employment Insurance – a lifeline for many workers during economic downturns. There is no clear path to strengthen labour rights, improve collective bargaining or expand union access, which helps workers better weather the current cost-of-living crisis. And there is no assurance that the push to remove interprovincial trade and labour mobility barriers won’t undermine local job creation or labour standards.

The promise to cut red tape and shrink public sector growth may appeal to corporate interests, but for working people, it risks eroding the very services and safeguards they rely on. Deregulation doesn’t improve job quality, and austerity doesn’t build resilient communities. Steelworkers are ready to work with the federal government to ensure ambitions translate into results for workers. But we will not stay silent if decisions are made without us or at our expense.

About the United Steelworkers union

The USW represents 225,000 members in nearly every economic sector across Canada and is the largest private-sector union in North America, with 850,000 members in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.

Each year, thousands of workers choose to join the USW because of the union’s strong track record in creating healthier, safer and more respectful workplaces and negotiating better working conditions and fairer compensation – including good wages, benefits and pensions.

For more information, please contact:
Shannon Devine, USW Communications, sdevine@usw.ca, 416-938-4402

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b10c10b2-ed63-418d-81a3-8e4cd43b3088