Talk to workers in any sector, in any workplace and sooner or later they’ll get to their frustrations with their ever-increasing workloads: ‘I’m struggling’, they’ll lament to fellow workers or anyone ready to listen, ‘to just do the job, never mind do it well’.

The issue that we can’t ignore this Labour Day is the disorientation in our movement’s politics. List the issues working people are most concerned about today and two things especially stand out. First, how fundamental the actions of the Canadian state are to what is most important to us. Second, how distressingly unable we have been to influence those actions.

Today, the message is that if you don’t like the way things are, tough — you have no alternative. The real lesson of course is that if the present economic system can’t offer us a better life, then it is that system, not our expectations that needs changing.