News and views from SA Canada Ontario Federation of Labour opts for political action
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The Ontario Federation of Labour convention, held in Toronto, Nov. 20 to 24, saw several large affiliates that had withheld dues for four years rejoin the House of Labour in Canada’s most populous province. The dues strike by OPSEU, SEIU, and ONA, actuated by a factional battle between conservative union bureaucrats and the progres sive past president of the OFL, Sid Ryan, crippled the federation, forcing it to sell its headquarters building. The right-wing coup replaced CUPE’s Ryan with UNIFOR’s Chris Buckley.
Many workplace and equity issues were discussed at the convention, but the OFL brass exerted every effort to keep “divisive” issues off the floor. Sev eral resolutions submitted in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli apartheid state, as well as for the eco-socialist LEAP Man ifesto, were buried at the back of the resolutions book.
Convention guest speakers included former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, current ONDP leader Andrea Horwath, and Black Lives Matter activ ist Desmond Cole.
The legislation that broke the com munity college teachers’ strike, passed in the Ontario legislature on the eve of the convention, hung over the pro ceedings like a foul cloak. The teach ers’ battle against precarious work and for workplace democracy evoked great admiration and support, tinged by bit terness at the outcome.
Outrageously, at a march of a few hundred of the 1100 delegates led by Buckley to Queens Park, there was no mention of the strikebreaking legisla tion—only praise for the labour law reform Bill 148.
Important gains in the form of better union organizing rules, and a rise to a $15/hour minimum wage by 2019, cannot justify turning a blind eye to Liberal government strike breaking and the lasting blow it deals to collec tive bargaining.
Try as it did, the OFL leadership was unable to prevent a debate on a mo lenged the very next day.
The challenge, orchestrated by the pro-Liberal right wing, and ironically backed by sup porters of the Communist Party, was soundly defeated, bucking the trend of so-called “strategic vot ing,” a not so modern version of Sam uel Gompers’ “reward your friends, punish your enemies” brand of labour opportunism.
The weakening of the party of the unions only fostered illusions in the Liberal side of Bay Street, and served to reinforce the austerity agenda of the state. The role of socialists and labour militants within the NDP is not to be cheerleaders but to fight for the inter ests of the working class against capi talism and its labour lieutenants.
A CUPE rank and file activist, Barry Conway, ran for OFL president against Chris Buckley, on an stridently antiausterity and anti-fascist platform. Conway gained a respectable 18% of the ballots cast despite the lack of an organized effort. It was a sign of a Fight Austerity—Lessons from the College Faculty Strike.” Guest speakers came from the college academic divi sion, as well as from UNIFOR and Latin America.
During the entire convention, Social ist Action sold dozens of copies of its press, and staffed a well stocked lit erature table, which attracted inter ested delegates from across the labour movement.
An emergency resolution, reaffirm ing organized labour’s right to collec tively bargain and strike, was passed on the last day of the convention. Mike Palecek, president of the Cana dian Union of Postal Workers, said that labour should be prepared to defy anti-worker legislation and build the general strike that is needed to defeat the bosses’ strikebreaking, austerity agenda. n Julius Arscott, a member of the Execu tive Board of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union, was a delegate to the OFL Convention.