By Lorinda Seward, Local 351, Editor inSolidarity
Deena Ladd, Executive Director of the Workers’ Action Centre, delivered a rousing keynote at OPSEU/SEFPO Convention 2025, energizing the crowd with her unapologetic passion and decades of grassroots experience.
With over 30 years of organizing under her belt, Ladd has been a fierce and tireless advocate for low-wage, racialized, immigrant, and precarious workers across Ontario. From leading the charge for $15 and Fairness to exposing temp agency exploitation, her work exemplifies what it means to build worker power from the ground up.
“If 2025 isn’t the time for swearing, then I don’t know what is,” she said with a grin, setting the tone for a fiery address.
Ladd described the moment we’re in as surreal, like “being in a futuristic movie”—only to realize, “Oh, it’s not the future. It’s now.” She pointed to the rise of billionaires, fascism, and government inaction as urgent threats to working people across the country.
Keeping the audience fully engaged, Ladd challenged them directly:
“Who’s worried about the impact on your community? Who’s worried about the growing fascism, racism, and targeting of migrants, activists, and people without status? Who’s worried about what’s going to happen on Monday with the federal elections?”
The crowd responded with thunderous applause.
“There are a lot more of us who are not unionized in this province than who are,” Ladd reminded delegates. She stressed that unions must lead the way in organizing the unorganized, because the stakes are high. “Nearly 60% of us are living paycheque to paycheque,” she said, “including those on pensions, who are going into debt just to cover basic necessities.”
She pointed out that 7.5 million people in Canada now work in the gig economy—an 85% increase in just the past three years—and many are struggling under crushing debt and rising interest rates. “Temporary fixes aren’t going to solve the economic crisis we’re facing,” Ladd declared. “The system is broken. It needs to be fixed.”
Transformative change
Ladd highlighted the No One Left Behind campaign from the Workers’ Action Centre as a movement for true, transformative change.
“We always get left behind when billionaires, governments, and corporations control the agenda,” she said. “We need to take back the agenda—and we need to take it back now!”
She also called for significant public investment in infrastructure, social housing, and public transit. “It’s a win-win,” she said. “We’d be creating good jobs while increasing access to essential public services. Corporations shouldn’t be allowed to funnel public funding to shareholders as profit—which is exactly what happened during the pandemic.”
Ladd urged delegates to think critically about the politics of blame. “Pay attention to who people are blaming when they’re struggling to pay rent or afford groceries,” she warned. “Every time the government points the finger at another group instead of taking responsibility, it pushes us further into poverty.”
Her message to the labour movement was clear: “We shouldn’t come last. We should come first!”
To learn more or get involved, visit: https://www.justice4workers.org/