Is Ontario NDP ready for 2018 election?

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years, command public attention. Liberal Premier Kath­ leen Wynne’s last ditch plan to cut rates by 25 per cent has NDP Leader Andrea Horwath saying, “me too.” But Horwath’s proposals to tinker with delivery costs, timeof-use rules, private profit margins, and her plan to buy back, at top dollar, the 30 per cent of Hydro One that the Liberals sold off, leave many Ontario consumers cold.

Instead of a bold policy—immediate nationalization of all energy generation and transmission, with mini­ mal, long-term compensation to rich stock holders—the ONDP offers only short fixes. Typically, it calls for an­ other study, rather than a phase-out of the dangerous and uber-costly nuclear power plants.

After the June 2014 electoral debacle, Horwath hired Manitoba NDP government guru Michael Balagus. His speeches to ONDP provincial council meetings have been larded with selective poll data he uses to ratio­ nalize opposition to free post-secondary education. He proposes commendable, but milquetoast, policies to ease union organizing and modestly raise the minimum wage.

Balagus and Horwath say the party should champion “bold policies.” Agreed. But where are they? Is the plat­ form now being cultivated in party back rooms, with the usual dearth of membership input, enough to warrant a vote of confidence in the Leader at the ONDP conven­ tion in Toronto, April 21-23, 2017?

Recall the Ontario NDP convention in November 2014. After months of intense campaigning, drawing on all the party’s resources, Horwath managed to hang onto her position. But she did so only after promising to atone, and by pledging to turn left.

In the mandatory leadership review, Horwath received 76.9 per cent support from the 1055 district association and union delegates, only slightly more than the 76.4 per cent she got two years earlier. The move to remove Horwath sprang from the discontent of NDPers with the June 2014 provincial election campaign she led.

Like Tom Mulcair, whose subsequent “balanced bud­ get no matter what” mantra sank the ship in the 2015 ... Women strike (continued from page 12: “Women’s strikes: Forward to May 1!”) own change.”

A few days before March 8, it became clear that the strike would be big when Jim Causby, superintendent of the 16 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City public schools in North Carolina announced that schools would be closed on March 8 due to the lack of staff on that day. Three quar­ ters of the 2000 workers said they would be striking.

Soon afterwards, Alexandria, Va., schools superinten­ dent Alvin Crawley decided not to hold classes, as hun­ dreds of staff members would not be working. In addi­ tion, the New School in New York and a preschool, Maple Street School in Brooklyn, closed their doors in solidar­ ity with women workers.

Thirty-three teachers at Bayard Taylor elementary school in Philadelphia took the day off to draw attention to the fact that Philadelphia teachers, mainly women, have worked for almost four years without a contract and five years without a raise. Later, about 400 protest­ ers rallied and marched through central Philadelphia.

At the University of California, Berkeley, at least 30 professors and instructors planned to either take their students to a demonstration in support of the strike or not hold classes at all. After it was clear that 1700 teach­ ers in Prince Georgia’s County, Md., public schools and 30% of the transportation staff would not be working on Wednesday, the district decided to close all schools.

Many women left work as individuals, and it was hard to assess the impact in mixed-gender workplaces or places where women were not concentrated in one lo­ cation. But it makes sense that there was a big impact on schools. Schools are like traditional factory floors, where everyone is in one place, making organizing eas­ ier. They work in the same buildings and take lunch and breaks together.

In Chicago, some 200 rallied, and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) filled their hall with close to 1000 union women, Planned Parenthood, and immigrant rights and anti-racism organizations.

In Washington, D.C., there were two marches. One was at the White House to protest the global gag rule, which threatens access to safe abortion and health care for mil­ lions around the world. The Executive Order cuts off U.S. aid for international NGOs that offer abortion services or abortion referrals. There was also a massive rally at the U.S. Department of Labor, where women workers and their allies demanded an end to sexual harassment federal election, Horwath embraced moderate, populist themes and discarded social justice issues. Moreover, the turn to the centre was not mandated by the party ranks, and it strained relations with large segments of the labour movement.

The shift mostly helped the Liberals. Kathleen Wynne campaigned for pension improvements and a wage in­ crease for low-paid workers, while Horwath promoted a Ministry of Cost Savings that seemed to target jobs in the public service. She also pledged to hold the line on wealth taxes.

Once the Liberals emerged with a majority govern­ ment, costing the NDP three key seats in downtown To­ ronto, Horwath purged her senior staff and apologized to delegates at the party’s Provincial Council. She later told the Convention that she would “keep talking about our ultimate values and goals and not just our first steps.” While this was pretty thin, it persuaded many members to give her another chance—especially as there was no heir apparent to the Leader.

Still, the mood of the convention was angry, and quite critical of the party tops.

Although the establishment dominated elections to the provincial executive with an official slate, the organized party left wing, the Socialist Caucus, and independent candidates did remarkably well.

Debates on convention procedures and resolutions pro­ duced a number of upsets. In the opening minutes of the convention, delegates voted to amend the agenda, forc­ ing the vote on Leader to occur late Saturday afternoon, rather than immediately following the Leader’s rah-rah speech set for the morning. This meant that hundreds of and violence against women in the workplace, a living wage, and union rights.

Forward to May 1!

Women have also been leading actions that are pro­ testing anti-immigration policies, including the Day Without Immigrant strikes. As low-wage workers, wom­ en are leaders of the struggles for the Fight For 15 and Walmart campaigns.

On the heels of the March 8 Women’s Strike, activists will now be organizing for strikes on May Day. A state­ ment by the National Committee of the International Women’s Strike, US states, “As antiracist feminists of the 99%, many of whom are ourselves immigrants, we stand against the vicious ICE raids that have in recent times tried to terrorize our communities and and split up families. As cis and trans women we have been in the forefront of organizing against such raids, of defending our families… “The violence of ICE against immigrants is part of the systemic police violence against Black people, Latinx and Native Americans, and the mass incarceration of people of color. This violence and systemic sexism and racism oppress and humiliate women of color, includ­ ing Native women and immigrant women, every day of our lives. To those who want to narrow down femi­ nism, we say feminism cannot be narrowed down only to demands over reproductive rights and formal gender equality.

“Feminism is a struggle against poverty, racism and immigration raids. The women who are part of or aspire to be the 1%, rely on the rest of us, especially immigrant women and women of color, to do the caregiving and service work for low pay or no pay. This is why we will strike on May Day.”

SEIU United Service Workers West President David Huerta issued a press release announcing that tens of thousands of his members will be striking on May Day despite the fact that “this is an act that encompasses some risk”. At a large press conference in Los Angeles to promote the strike, Huerta said, “Workers are under at­ tack. If we are not resisting, we are collaborating.”

The rest of the speakers were mostly women activists in unions supporting May Day activities. A Guatemalan immigrant member of UFCW 770 called for shutting down her store, and a woman from Unite/HERE Local 11 spoke about her organizing efforts for May Day.

A woman from United Teachers in Los Angeles re­ ported that the teachers are telling the school district to shut down the schools on May Day. This echoed what happened on International Women’s Day in three school delegates summoned by conservative riding and union leaders to vote to sustain Horwath had to hang around an extra seven hours.

Motions of referral, with instructions to integrate tougher language into resolutions from the official vet­ ting committee, succeeded in a number of cases. This radicalized the policy on Social Assistance, Post-Sec­ ondary tuition, the bitumen pipeline known as Line 9, the Ontario Municipal Board, and nearly did so on Minimum Wage. The rebellious feeling also produced a win for more time to debate Labour issues. It led over 30 per cent to vote against acceptance of the Provincial Secretary’s Report, a report that was clearly identified with the failed election campaign.

By far the biggest upset to the establishment was the victory for Free Post-Secondary Education, Abolish Student Debt -- a long standing Socialist Caucus cause celebre. Sadly, the adopted free tuition policy was bur­ ied by Horwath, and remains interred.In 2014, NDPers were looking for change. But as Toronto Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn then wryly observed, “New Demo­ crats are sticking with their leader largely because they are stuck with her.”

That was cold comfort for the Leader who pledged to change her ways. The question is: What have we seen since then? Clearly, not enough to justify a vote of con­ fidence.

In the wake of mass sentiment for the ideas of Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and the march of 4 million women and men in the U.S. against Donald Trump’s agenda in January, there are plenty of reasons for the party and union left to continue to press for a Workers’ Agenda. n Are female bankers role models? A few female bankers have broken the glass ceil­ ing. They are being paid millions of dollars a year. Is this a gain for women, a triumph of feminism?

To be sure, the rise of the women’s liberation movement put pressure on the patriarchal capitalist rulers. They dusted off some seats at the corporate board table for women—women who are willing to play by the rules of elitism and exploitation.

As a result, Janice Fukakusa, former chief finan­ cial officer of the Royal Bank of Canada, enjoyed a salary of $4.67 million in fiscal 2016. Jennifer Tory, also of Royal Bank, got $4.29 million in 2016; Col­ leen M. Johnston of the Toronto-Dominion Bank re­ ceived $3.1 million; and Diane Giard of the National Bank of Canada made $2.84 million.

Nonetheless, there are still no female Chief Ex­ ecutive Officers at Canada’s largest banks. And the highest paid females still fall far short of the highest paid male CEOs.

But women are still making progress, right? No, not where it matters to most women, those whose labour is paid, or not paid at all. On average, women are paid 13 per cent less than men in Canada. In fact, the gap would be bigger if male workers’ wages had not stagnated or fallen over the past two decades.

Twenty-seven per cent of employed women work fewer than 30 hours per week, more than double the 12 per cent of men who work part-time. Seven out of 10 part-time workers are female. Low-paid women increasingly hold more than one job to survive; 56 per cent of multiple job holders are women. Female post-secondary students are a majority of those who bear onerous student debt after leaving college.

Deep inequality is rooted in the capitalist system.

It can be overcome only by ridding the world of that outmoded system, with all its oppressive and de­ structive tendencies. Bourgeois feminism won’t ac­ complish that. Only socialist feminism, based on the political self-activity of working women and men, has that as its aim. — ELIZABETH BYCE districts where teachers walked off the job. These wom­ en are leading the way towards collective action and building solidarity in their communities at the same time as the new feminism for the 99% is building a working-class-based feminist movement. n SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2017 11

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SOCIALIST ACTION