01) MCGUINTY ON COLLISION COURSE WITH COMMON FRONT
By Liz Rowley
Premier Dalton McGuinty's unofficial pact with the Tories to dismantle free collective bargaining and the right to strike in Ontario's public sector is starting to stink in the Liberal leadership race. McGuinty has stepped down as leader, and will resign as Premier following the Jan. 25 Liberal convention. Most of the declared candidates say they don't need legislation to secure new contracts, and want to repair relations with the teachers' unions and others in the broader public sector.
Front runners Sandra Pupatella and Gerard Kennedy, who have both been out of the Legislature for several years, are particularly critical of McGuinty's anti‑labour Bills, and his decision to prorogue the Legislature.
While the Legislature sits idle, McGuinty is seeking to force public sector unions to "voluntarily" comply with a compulsory two-year wage freeze and other concessions, affecting 481,000 workers and 3,200 collective agreements. He is also trying to work out a deal with the Tories, who are campaigning to eliminate the Rand formula and the closed shop. This is McGuinty's big stick as he pushes union leaders to negotiate wage cuts, since that's what the freeze really means.
Teachers and educational workers in Ontario's English public schools have already been saddled with Bill 115. This legislation forces education unions and elected School Boards to "negotiate" agreements that mirror the wage freeze, pension changes, and changes to the grid, that were accepted by leaders of the English Catholics teachers' (OECTA) and French teachers' unions last summer. Bill 115 enables the Cabinet to impose such agreements, removes the right to strike, and prevents unions or school boards from challenging the legislation in court.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers, Elementary Teachers, and CUPE have launched a Charter challenge to the legislation, and the Ontario Public School Boards Association has sought intervenor status in the challenge.
Negotiations between OSSTF and the government broke off Nov. 12 after the province made clear that it will not rescind its prohibition on free collective bargaining and the right to strike, despite the union's offer to accept a wage freeze. In response, teachers in secondary schools will end extra‑curricular activities, hall supervision, covering for absent colleagues, attending parent‑teacher conferences, etc.
Public sector union leaders have all made clear that the main issue is free collective bargaining and defence of public services. The OFL is gearing up for a Dec. 8 gathering of the "We are Ontario Common Front," the coalition of labour and its social and community allies formed last April to defend public services and labour and democratic rights.
Built on the model of the "We Are Wisconsin" coalition, the Common Front aims to stop the anti‑labour, anti‑people directions of Ontario's minority Liberal government with mass, independent labour and community political action.
OFL President Sid Ryan has indicated that the Days of Action against Mike Harris in the 1990s are a good example of the kind of action needed to head off this right‑wing agenda. The OFL has put much time and energy into organizing across the province, involving the student movement, anti‑poverty groups, housing advocates, healthcare advocates and the OHC among many others. The Communist Party is the only political affiliate, though many NDPers and some Greens are participating.
But others are more interested in the NDP's positioning in a provincial election expected next spring, following the Speech from the Throne and a new budget. The soft policies of the NDP caucus are not to be criticized, according to this thinking, and labour's resources should be directed to secure an "Orange Crush" in Ontario, built on the personal popularity of NDP leader Andrea Horwath and widespread anger at the Liberals.
This dangerous approach is no guarantee that the Tories will not be the main beneficiaries of a Liberal defeat. Nor is there any guarantee that the NDP would do anything very different than the Liberals. Horwath has stated that her caucus supports a negotiated wage freeze in the public sector, with the underlying argument that workers should pay for an economic crisis caused by the banks and the biggest corporations. This is a party that supports austerity. When it was last in government, the NDP attacked workers' rights and wages with the 1993 social contract.
The Communist Party in Ontario is calling on the labour and people's movements to support the Common Front and move the fight into the streets and workplaces. Sustained and escalating mass action and strikes could force the government to back off its austerity policies, and if it doesn't, to elect a new, more progressive government committed to labour's policies and a People's Agenda.
With this in mind, the Dec. 8 meeting will be very important for labour, and for the fightback overall in Ontario.