Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Experiencing Justice

Working at CLAC has taught me that justice isn’t only something we just try to define, it’s something we feel

By Anne Jan, Representative Intern

In Plato’s famous work The Republic, the ancient Greek philosopher spends hundreds of pages wrestling with the question, what is justice?

In my initial interview with CLAC when I applied for the summer intern role, I was asked how I would define justice. Although I think my answer at the time was sufficient, I restrained myself from pointing out that if Plato couldn’t fully explain it, who was I to do better?

Still, as I reflect on the months since that interview, I’ve come to believe that justice isn’t just some grand philosophical ideal floating out there. Working at CLAC has taught me that justice isn’t only something we just try to define, it’s something we feel.

Justice feels like watching CLAC’s Legal Team work late into the evening preparing for an arbitration hearing because a single mom—earning just $2 per hour more than minimum wage at a retirement home—was wrongly terminated.

Justice feels like seeing a CLAC representative persistently ask hard questions to hold a manager accountable for why a particular injustice at a retirement home hadn’t been addressed since the last labour-management meeting.

Justice feels like having a nonunionized worker at a long term care home take your pamphlet, look you in the eye, and say, “Thank you for coming. We’re interested in how CLAC can help us.”

Personally, I’ve worked in healthcare as a nonunionized worker, and I know first-hand how challenging the industry can be when it comes to creating meaningful change. Being able to work for a union that’s striving to improve Ontario’s healthcare system has truly been a gift.

That’s not to say that justice always prevails. In a world of broken systems, failures do happen. There are CLAC healthcare members who, despite the best efforts, don’t always get the justice they deserve.

But as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

CLAC’s mission is to create space so that healthcare workers can breathe easier within their workplaces and within the sector. And I’m proud to have played even a small part in that mission.

Experiencing Justice

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