The rights of working people include freedom of association, safety and dignity in the workplace.
From the book Big Ideas: The Social Crusades of Joseph Atkinson, edited by Michael Pieri:
Labour
"Prosperity must bless all . . ." For 50 years, Joseph Atkinson was a champion of workers, many thousands of whom suffered "hunger and despair" when Toronto was plunged into successive depressions. The Star publisher sought changes to the capitalist system that he believed made a few Canadians extremely rich, while thousands lived in abject misery. News stories told of families left without money for food and rent during economic downturns. "Yesterday somebody called and found the children and mother crying from hunger and cold. Do you know those people hadn't one spark of fire in their house," recounted a typical report in 1908. The Star launched its own fund "to fight hunger and want," and urged readers to contribute. It also pressed the city to provide snow-cleaning jobs and unemployment relief.
Later, in 1914, editorials began to call for changes to the capital system "so that people shall not starve or freeze, forgotten by their neighbors, or live in such deprivation that disease and death will hunt them out and dispose of them one by one or in dozens . . ." The welfare of workers was a primary concern of Joseph Atkinson, though initial attempts to organize reporters and editors at his own newspaper were frustrated for several years. (He reportedly feared any agreement that did not included the Globe and Telegram would put the Star at a competitive disadvantage, and he insisted on joint negotiations).
Throughout his life, Atkinson supported minimum wages, the eight-hour day, better working conditions, technical schools and night university for workers wishing to advance, the right of workers to strike for higher pay, and the right of workes to join the union of their choice, workers' compensation, and employment for the handicapped. But of his many campaigns on behalf of workers, perhaps the greatest was the long struggle for unemployment insurance.