Labour Fair 2025: The critical need for labour education

In episode six, we feature the opening discussion of the 33rd annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College.

Under this year's theme, What Are We Working For? JP Hornick, president of OPSEU/SEFPO, (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), speaks on the critical need for labour education, labour organizing amid the changing nature of work and the crisis facing Ontario colleges.

Reflecting on the need for labour education Hornick says:

“These are the spaces where we learn how to organize, where we learn how to build community – it provides the critical analysis that people need to understand why there are inequities in society. Why systems of oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, ageism, homophobia and transphobia are being used right now in this moment to try and divide workers from one another. Programs like the School of Labour or labour education are where we actually start to have conversations with workers about why we're not one another's enemies.

I think about this quote from Angela Davis: ‘If they come for me in the morning, then they will come for you in the night.’"

About today’s guest: 

JP Hornick (they/them) is the president of OPSEU/SEFPO, one of Canada’s largest provincial public sector unions, representing more than 180,000 members across Ontario. OPSEU/SEFPO members work for the Ontario government, at community colleges, for the LCBO, in health care, and in workplaces and community agencies across the broader public sector. Hornick has been a part of many mobilizations of working people, both in unions and in social justice spaces. Most recently, they taught labour history and was the coordinator of the School of Labour and the annual Labour Fair at George Brown College. They led OPSEU/SEFPO College faculty through a province-wide strike in 2017 and another successful round of bargaining in 2022, before being elected president of OPSEU/SEFPO for the first time in April of that year. Hornick was re-elected at the last OPSEU/SEFPO Convention in April 2024.

Labour Fair Opening: Benjamin McCarthy, Labour Fair 2025 Coordinator

Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute. 

Image: JP Hornick  / Used with permission.

Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased. 

Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy) 

Courage My Friends podcast organizing committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu. 

Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca. 

Host: Resh Budhu.