The Busy Signal > Union News

When Workers Are Pitted Against Each Other, Nobody Wins

By Dawn Thomas-Cameron | Summer/Fall 2026

Every union member knows the oldest trick in the book: get workers fighting each other, and the people at the top stay out of the spotlight. A recent briefing from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW-ICREF) argues that the same playbook is now being run on a different stage.

The report, written by Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, examines what it calls the anti-gender or anti-rights movement: groups that oppose “gender ideology,” a catch-all for 2SLGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and sex education. The author says these groups have become better funded, more professional, and more connected across borders, and that trans people are currently their main wedge issue. Public understanding of trans issues lags behind their growing visibility, and the report argues that gap is easy to exploit.

Union members will recognize the fight playing out in schools. The “parental rights” campaign, according to the report, sets parents against both trans youth and the educators who support them. That distracts from a more basic problem: schools stretched thin by funding cuts and burnout. The report cites the Alberta Teachers’ Association finding that Alberta spends the least per student in Canada, about $1,200 below the national average. When educators are cast as the threat, the people who set school budgets stay out of view.

Policy is already moving. Since 2023, anti-trans measures have been introduced in New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The author also warns that as federal austerity looms, “women’s safety” arguments could be used to shape housing policy and gender-based violence funding, with consequences for shelters and the workers who staff them.

The report’s answer is solidarity: stand with 2SLGBTQ+ communities, build messaging around shared concerns like safe schools and well-funded public services, and reclaim “common sense” rather than ceding it to opponents.

It is a message that should sound familiar on any picket line: a movement that divides us is easier to defeat than one that holds together.

Source: Owusu-Akyeeah, D. (2025). Anti-Gender Movements and Threats to Feminist Progress. Ottawa: CRIAW-ICREF. criaw-icref.ca/publications