01) EDUCATION BARGAINING: ANOTHER MADE-IN-QUEENS-PARK MESS

 

By Liz Rowley

 

            Ontario’s teachers and educational workers entered 2015 without a contract, and some may leave the year in the same condition. The problem? The Liberal government in Queen’s Park.

 

            It started when Premier Wynne promised never to treat teachers and education workers the way her Liberal predecessor had, when Dalton McGuinty suspended free collective bargaining and imposed a contract with $2 billion in cuts in 2012.

 

            McGuinty’s create-a-crisis government prorogued when the Tories smelled blood and refused to support his infamous Bill 115 to extend the wage freeze to the broader public sector. A month later McGuinty resigned, leaving his cabinet members to clean up the mess and try to hold onto government.  

 

            In the subsequent leadership campaign, Wynne campaigned from the left. Convention delegates elected her over a right-wing opponent, shaken by the sight of thousands of angry teachers and education workers demonstrating outside, supported by a mobilized labour movement led by OFL President Sid Ryan.

 

            Clinging to government by a thread, Wynne promised to fix Bill 115. Teachers and educational workers, she said, could count on her to treat them with respect and fairness.

 

            Wynne didn’t mention her government’s decisions: first, to continue the austerity course set by McGuinty, including an extended wage freeze across the public sector; and second, to abandon the government’s 2003 promise to introduce a needs-based funding formula for education, negatively affecting School Boards, communities, students’ learning conditions, and the working conditions of teachers and educational workers.

 

            These are the real roots of the crisis in education, and the real reason for the difficulties faced by unions in the education sector trying to secure collective agreements 14 to 18 months after previous contracts expired.

 

            Add to this the Wynne government’s decision to introduce two-tiered bargaining, where the unions each have to negotiate not one but two contracts: one with the province over wages, and the other with local School Boards over working conditions. This set of negotiations was all about contract stripping and “net zero” bargaining, which left unions (at best) with a 1.8% pay increase over three years, and a signing bonus that wasn’t part of the wage package, offset by changes to working conditions, and an inflation rate not much less than the wage increase.     

 

            Add to this the green light given by the Education Minister, allowing local School Boards to unilaterally cut wages by 10% to employees who are still working, but whose unions have refused to sign contract stripping collective agreements. Not mentioned is the School Boards’ earlier demand (now abandoned) that unions should agree to increased class sizes and decreased prep time for teachers. Not mentioned is the fact that School Boards deliberately backed away from negotiations with the Elementary Teachers, apparently hoping that the delays would turn the public against the unions and pressure them to make concessions.

 

            Add to this a decision by the provincial government, deliberately leaked to the media, to reimburse unions and school boards for some of the extraordinary expenses incurred as a consequence of the two tiered bargaining imposed by Wynne. As expected, this generated a huge backlash against the unions, painted as greedy fat cats who are indifferent to cutbacks in schools and communities. Not mentioned is the fact that only unions – not School Boards – are now required to produce receipts for cheques still to be issued, or that the unions have always submitted receipts for expense cheques. 

 

            These protracted struggles directly affect students and the quality of education they receive, but the end is still not in sight. Many local contracts are still to be negotiated and more to be ratified.

 

            While all of the unions in the sector expressed mutual solidarity at protests and demonstrations, there was no coordinated bargaining strategy, despite the fact their contracts all expired at the same time. Coordinated bargaining would have made them all stronger, and better able to communicate their anti-austerity, pro-education message to the public.

 

            Once the larger unions and bargaining units have settled, smaller unions in the sector will be in the weakest position, as the most likely to face the public’s wrath alone. Labour must not allow this to happen. As the unions themselves say, “teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.” We’re talking about our children, and our sisters and brothers in the trade union movement. We’re talking about quality education and the future of our country.

 

            The real causes of this protracted struggle need to be exposed. The policies of the Liberal government are directly responsible. In a workplace, they’d be fired. Come the next election, the Liberals should be fired too, and replaced with a government committed to a people’s agenda - not the corporate agenda so revered in the Ontario Legislature today. 

 

            In the meantime, the fight to defeat wage cuts, privatization, and austerity, has to be stepped up. The Common Front in Quebec is a splendid example of how the labour and people’s movements can join to fight austerity, to defend free collective bargaining and to protect and advance workers’ economic and social interests. 

 

            Likewise, the great Quebec student strike of 2012 to defend accessible post-secondary education was transformed into a struggle of all those who work for a living, who want real and fundamental change – not cosmetic change - for themselves and their children. This movement won the admiration and support of workers across Canada, and then it defeated a government and its anti-youth, anti-worker and anti-social policies. 

 

            That’s the kind of unity and all-in struggle we need today in Ontario, to restore quality public education and health care, to protect and expand civil, democratic, and labour rights, and to build a future where people’s needs trump corporate greed. For now, the fight by teachers and education workers continues to be a main battlefront in Ontario. 

 

(The above article is from the November 16-30, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)