Prince George, B.C.-  Jim Sinclair  may not be the head of the BC Federation of Labour anymore,  but he is still  willing to  rally the troops and  dig in for a fight.

Speaking at the  May Day dinner in Prince George last night,  Sinclair says the  battle continues “We have a lot to celebrate,  we have a lot of challenges, but we have a lot to celebrate”   He says there has been  significant progress since May Day  started over a century ago,  “You look at this  town, 35% of the money in this town,  for the most part,   comes from public sector wages  for the people who are working at the University, working in the schools,  working at the hospital, working at the  college.  Another 35% comes mostly from the resource sector, and the other 30% comes from pension cheques that  came from those sectors  or  from those people supporting local businesses with their paycheques.  That’s what we ( the working class)  created, safe decent places for people to live.”

Sinclair says inequality remains  a number one issue,  “With all the technology and all the advances we’ve made,  we’ve actually created a world that has more inequality not less,  this is insanity.”  He  says the barriers  are higher today for  young people who want to advance their education and  move forward  as  the costs for college or university are  out of reach for too many.

It’s been just over a year since he  stepped away from  leading the BC Federation of Labour “It’s a bit of a change” says Sinclair “I don’t have any regrets in that decision at all, it’s time for some new energy and some new blood and  I felt it was in good shape when I  left.”

Lately his focus has been on LNG,  as he is the Vice Chair of the Premier’s  working group  “Our big  job has been  to figure out, how,  if they build LNG and that’s still  a question,  but my attitude from the very beginning  has been, if we’re  going to  build it then we should build it.  It should involve  massive training of young people in trades and  skills that  we can continue to use to build the province so we  don’t just build a plant and a pipeline, we actually build British Columbia.”

While  he  says there has been effort to  train young people, the problem remains that those young people  can’t get their apprenticeships  “So what we’ve said on LNG,  and the companies have agreed,  is that our goal is one out   of every four  tradespeople on the project should be an apprentice.   It means  that at the peak of construction on one project,  there would be over 2,000 apprentices on the job.”

So, while  not at the head of the BC Federation of Labour anymore,  he continues to  battle  on behalf of  the working class   in  a fight  that has  always had one  goal “For  working people to have hope of a decent life,  that’s  what the fight has always been about and will continue to be about as long as I’m alive and long after I’m gone.”