News and views from SA Canada Ontario teachers gear up for battle — despite divisions

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TORONTO—Labour Day 2012 inaugurates a sea­ son of intense class conflict between public service workers and the Ontario Liberal government. Teacher union officials are now locked in battle with their erst­ while supposed-ally, Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose Spring budget demands major concessions to balance the books at the expense of education and other social amenities.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) will conduct a political day of action in the fall if the Legislature attempts to impose a settlement on its members. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) is taking strike votes from Aug. 27 to Sept. 7, and is also considering a day of protest.

ETFO and OSSTF are working in concert with the French teachers’ association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents many school boards’ support staff.

Sadly, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Asso­ ciation (OECTA) broke ranks with the other organi­ zations in early July when it reached a deal with the Ontario government. It conceded three unpaid profes­ sional development days (i.e. a 1.5 per cent cut in pay), and cancelled funding for more secondary school teachers, in exchange for partial annual increments up the existing wage grid. Tellingly, OECTA forfeited the right of its members to vote on the deal.

OECTA members are still stuck with the reduction of paid sick days (down to 10, from 20 per year), an end to compensation for unused sick days, and a two year wage freeze – which McGuinty still seeks to impose Vice president, OPSEU Local 532 The 38,000 members of the Ontario public service are entering a new round of bargaining this fall, amidst a wave of labour concessions across both the pri­ vate and public sectors. The Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OP­ SEU), the largest public sector union in the province, is readying itself.

The employer is expected to demand severe concessions. Wages, sick leave, benefits, pensions, and job security could be on the chopping block. Attacks on pensions may come in the form of legislation to change current “defined pensions” into pooled investment schemes. Many members have been de­ clared “surplus” (3400 positions have already been cut).

The cuts have affected the reliabil­ ity and quality of public services in the province, and have taken a toll on (Above) Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who union officials once considered their “ally,” is demanding major concessions from teachers. on all teachers. OSSTF has already agreed to freeze wages, but it seeks to preserve movement up the ex­ perience grid (particularly important for teachers in their first 10 years) and to keep the current sick-leave provisions.

“We tabled a proposal to the government back in April that would give them additional cost savings .... a provincial benefits plan proposal that would save the OSSTF President Ken Coran told a July 6 news confer­ ence.

But this concessionary posture curried no favour with the government, which proceeded to play the “divide and rule” game. Premier McGuinty picked off the weakest union already plagued by the deeply un­ popular resistance of Catholic high schools to the for­ mation, by its students, of gay-straight alliance clubs.

Substitute teachers, who comprise over 7000 of OS­ STF’s 60,000 members province-wide, have reason to be apprehensive of any provincial deal—which likely will fail to address deteriorating classroom conditions and declining daily job opportunities. Poorly funded students increasingly lash out at substitute teachers. Frustrated full-time teachers retire early. Many return to work as subs, “double-dipping” to augment their pension income. This practice, condoned, even en­ couraged by OSSTF officials in some districts, leaves many substitutes at the brink of destitution.

It is crucial to be cognizant of these divisions in or­ der to overcome them—which is possible, but only if unions fight for the interests of all members and em­ ploy more militant tactics in the workplace and in the political arena.

Many teachers feel betrayed by the Ontario Liberal Party, which enjoyed their tacit support in recent pro­ vincial elections—to fend off the rhetorically more right-wing Tories. The current collective bargaining battle demonstrates the foolishness of “lesser evil” politics. The latter includes the mistaken idea that the big business-backed Liberals would do anything oth­ er than act in the interest of capital, especially in the throes of a global capitalist economic crisis.

Instead of concessions bargaining and “lesser evil” capitalist politics, all education workers should unite public and private sector workers in a campaign that follows the mass mobilizing example of the Quebec students’ movement.

Needed are escalating job actions that lead to an unlimited general strike to stop the rulers’ austerity drive, and to make capital pay for the crisis it created. Required is a fight for a Workers’ Government, a pro­ cess that starts with teachers and all working people taking control of the existing labour party, the NDP, and demanding it fight for the vast majority. n