by SGNews Staff
by SGNewsStaff
“The agreement could take away the province’s ability to promote cutting edge value-added industries,” says the report’s co-author John Jacobs.
by SGNews Staff
The resignation of Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan offers Premier Kathleen Wynne an opportunity to put public interest ahead of Bay Street's for the first time in years, said Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
"Dwight Duncan will be remembered by my members as the man who demanded cuts to public services, jobs, and wages for working people while doling out sacks full of cash to the richest corporations in the country, particularly those in the financial services industry," he said.
“It is our hope that the next finance minister will come to work for the 99%, not the one per cent. For a change.”
Under the McGuinty Liberals, tax breaks for the financial services industry alone (not including insurance) have amounted to at least $430 million a year from cuts to the corporate income tax rate, and $740 million a year from the elimination of the capital tax, he said, citing last year's Ontario budget changes.
"Bay Street is enjoying more than a billion dollars a year in free money thanks to the efforts of Minister Duncan and his predecessor," Thomas said. "We can hardly wait to see where he lands to collect his earthly reward."
from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union
There's more money in Ontario than there's ever been. And yet, there's more inequality. That's not right. That's why OPSEU has joined with other unions and the community to do something about it. They started in Northeastern Ontario and combined an in-hall Sudbury forum with a teleconference of more than 2,000 activists in the region. The fight for fairness continues in coming weeks and months across Ontario. It's part of a national program.
"There's more money in Ontario than there's ever been. And yet, there's more inequality."
by Ish Theilheimer, video by Samantha Bayard, transcripton by Ruth Cooper
[On Feb 6, 2013, Straight Goods News interviewed Richard Pond of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) at CUPE's first CUPE National Bargaining Conference. We discussed what Canadian labour can learn from European labour organizations about bargaining for public sector workers, in the current wave of austerity-driven cuts to public services.]
from Canadian Dimension
from The Little Education Report
There was a meeting during the late 1990s of a few people to see if a joint organization could be created to battle Mike Harris’ education agenda by putting together an alliance of parents and teachers. The thinking was this: teachers have tons of money and human resources to fight politically but when they do so in the name of teachers and education workers, although sincere, there is that nagging doubt that “you are only here for self interest.” Nobody accuses the parents of self interest but, conversely, they have no money and few human resources. If the active parents groups of Toronto teamed up with the federations and CUPE, the resulting powerhouse would rock the education world.
This eventually evolved into the Campaign for Public Education. There were four people at the first meetings, Professor George Martell of York U, parent activist Jackie Latter, parent activist Kathleen Wynne and your scribe. Ontatrio Secondary School Teachers Federation local president Jim McQueen, Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario president Martin Long and Canadian Union of Public Employees President John Weatherup soon arrived and added the necessary muscle to make the project work. Soon lawn signs sprouted all over Toronto with the message from Kathleen as I recall “Give our Kids What They Need to Succeed.”
Over the past 15 years, I have kept fairly close contact as Kathleen Wynne went from parent activist to trustee, to MPP, to minister of education. Kathleen is a Liberal and a liberal and well, I’m not but we both understood in the fight against Mike Harris, there was no room for too much partisanship amongst progressives. She was naturally pulled hither and yon in the political world where principle and pragmatism duke it out for hegemony on a daily basis. Some days you have to take one for the team even if you just argued in caucus or cabinet for the opposite approach.
On the other hand, and I say this as a friend, Kathleen has this maddening mediator’s approach to situations that always finds the truth is in the centre. This is what makes her a Liberal and not a social-democrat. I have often told her “Kathleen… sometimes one side is 100 per cent right and the other side is 100 per cent wrong.” Arrrgh. Was Mike Harris half right or was he wrong on every issue every single day. I rest my case.
Everyone is expecting miracles on the teacher bargaining front but they may be bitterly disappointed. Kathleen maintains “we have to have a conversation (her favourite word) about that but everyone needs to understand that we must have extra-curricular activities back but there is no money.” Classic Kathleen.
Sadly, she was water boarded with the austerity Kool Aid of Bay Street, Duncan, Drummond, and the other self interested losers.
As an aside, some of the teacher protest signs at the Liberal convention made me laugh out loud. Minister of Education, talking points queen Laurel Broten just kept saying “we are just taking a pause here…” which is a bald faced lie. Removing sick days is not a pause it is permanent. One sign read “we are just taking a pause on extra-curriculars” another, “extra-curriculars have been prorogued.”
My approach you ask? Mike Harris lowered corporate taxes by an amount that would yield $16 billion in 2013 dollars thus precipitating this crisis on purpose. To counter the self interested corporate opposition here; Ontario does not have a spending problem, it has a revenue problem. Deficits are composed of uncollected taxes. Go raise corporate taxes by the amount of the deficit, problem solved. The corporate taxes would still be the lowest in the Great Lakes Basin. Mitt Romney complained throughout the American election that Ontario taxes were so low no American state close by could compete. Obama, for heaven’s sake, a Goldman Sachs type corporate liberal on his best day understands a little math. 1) high level public services are a good idea for both social and economic reasons. 2) the poor have no money, 3) the middle class is tapped out. 4) the one percent rich has so much money they literally don’t know what to do with it since public policy has held their taxes low (Bush tax cuts only the latest) since the 70s really.
There is really only one way out of the crisis. The rich on Wall Street with their unbridled greed through hedge funds, derivatives, credit default swaps, bundled subprime mortgages, and obscene CEO pay, has taken the livelihoods of workers, farmers, the middle class, and even a big piece of main street and the business members of the real economy (the people who make things) to the casino of Wall Street, gambled the whole damn thing and lost. Who the hell else should pay for our problems but those bastards? Andrea Horwath is at least on the right path forcing Dwight Duncan to cancel scheduled corporate tax cuts. She is now demanding a reduction in corporate business deductions. Why should teachers lose their sick days while CEOs still write off their lunches and entertainment?
Notwithstanding the screed above, I’m back now. Somehow, although it would be nice, I don’t feel the short term problem is likely to be solved by Occupy Bay Street with pitch forks and torches at the corner of King and Bay. Premier Wynne will be looking at low cost solutions to encourage teachers to lighten up a tad. Here are the first solutions that come to mind. Bring forth the rotting corpses of the Education Quality and Accountability Office and the Ontario College of Teachers. Oh no we can’t do that as if either served any useful function whatsoever. Ken Coran’s ideas of letters of understanding have great promise. It allows for new understandings without technically opening up the contracts and putting everything on the table.
The federations believe millions could be saved by a federation takeover of all benefit plans. Will that even get a hearing?
Recent legislation has created a situation where teacher contracts must be either two or four years long. If the government was sincere, (please no laughing) then NEGOTIATE, year three and year four. Put in a decent wage increase, a cost of living adjustment clause and some compensation for the lost sick days, a buyout if you will. That is the shape of an everybody wins deal. If that or something close is not available then get out the political axe handles and the Louisville Sluggers. This thing is going to get ugly. The teachers are about to do to the Liberal Party what Carrie Underwood did to the car of her cheatin’ boyfriend. Maybe next time they’ll think before they cheat. For those who missed the metaphor, here is the Cliff’s Notes. Carrie represents the teachers and education workers, the bleached blonde tramp is Bay Street, the cheating boyfriend is McGuinty, and the four-wheel drive car is the Liberal Party.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/carrieunderwood/beforehecheats.html
The federations have literally millions to spend on anti-Liberal advertising and an army of expert political operatives to put into the field against the Liberal Party very soon. They know exactly how to triage the 107 ridings into can’t win, can’t lose and about 30 ridings that determine the fate of governments. Like the success of the united Greeks against the vastly larger Persian army, they know exactly how to deploy their resources to fight either in the narrow valleys or between the cliffs and the sea (Thermopylae). These resources will be deployed on an NDP only basis unless the Liberals smell the coffee. It may already be too late.
by Ish Theilheimer, video by Samantha Bayard, transcripton by Susan Huebert
[Deena Ladd, Co-ordinator of the Workers’ Action Centre, spoke to the CUPE bargaining conference in Ottawa on Feb 6, 2013. Ladd works to improve wages and working conditions for workers of colour, low-wage workers and immigrant workers, who are often the most marginalized and vulnerable. Before joining the Centre, she was an organizer with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (now known as UNITE HERE) working with garment workers, home-based workers, and social service, retail and manufacturing workers. She has developed and taught courses, workshops and training sessions for rank and file unionized women, young workers and workers of colour for trade unions and federations. Deena Ladd serves on the advisory committees of several organizations including foundations addressing poverty and the Coalition for Change: Caregivers and Migrant Temporary Workers. Straight Goods News interviewed her after she spoke to the conference.]
Deena Ladd:
The Workers’ Action Centre is an organization based in Toronto, but we have provincial scope. We work with many workers who are not part of the trade union movement, who are working through temp. agencies, who are contract workers, who are in low-waged, precarious types of employment. We operate a hotline where workers can phone in around their questions at work, but then they also come to the centre to fight for their wages. Say, someone hasn’t been paid overtime or hasn’t even been paid minimum wage. We work with them to challenge their employer to get money, but also to file claims. We do a lot of education in the community. We reach about two thousand workers across the Greater Toronto Area, providing workers’ rights training, information, support.
We also provide a lot of labour information across the province at settlement agencies, at places where people are looking for a job — libraries, everywhere that somebody might be going to try and connect with the resources. We try and make sure people are getting access to information, potentially in their first language, but also information that recognizes that if a lot of people speak up, they’ll lose their jobs. And so, what do you do in that situation, right? If you tell your employer, “Oh, I’m looking at my paycheque, and you haven’t paid me overtime.” Well, you’re going to be out of a job, right? So, what do you do in that situation? How do you fight back? How do you fight for yourselves and also build a relationship with the communities that you’re from and help them fight back, too?
So, part of what we do is also through people coming to our organization with a problem at work. We try to work with that person and then do that political education, say, you know that it’s not just you that has been paid minimum wage. Did you know that there are thousands of workers who are filing claims at the Ministry of Labour, thousands of workers who are really struggling to survive? Is that right? Do you think that’s right? Do you think that’s fair, what’s happened to you in your job? Do you want to do something about it? Then we try to get them involved in the centre. People become members. They start to get involved in campaign planning, in organizing, doing outreach to their communities, and start to become politically involved.
Deena Ladd says the organized workers she helps are key to developing new political alliances.
Straight Goods News:
How does that relate to the subject of the CUPE conference at which you’re speaking, which is about bargaining and public sector workers?
Deena Ladd:
Well, I think there are so many different connections. I think one connection for sure is that to be successful in bargaining, you need to have political strength and you need to have a base that will fight for what you want at the bargaining table. As we’ve seen,
the kind of erosion of rights and concessions demanded at the bargaining table, require a different strategy and require taking different types of risks in building support.
And so, I think that there are strategies that community organizations, organizations like ours use to build that power, build that strength in communities where we don’t have a union base, and I think it’s sharing those strategies with CUPE. It’s also looking at the fact that many of the struggles that the Workers’ Action Centre is doing, like fighting for an increased minimum wage, fighting for a stronger floor of protection, fighting for better immigration policies, stronger social assistance, are very much connected to the issues that CUPE members are dealing with in their work, in the community, but also in their own families, their own neighbourhoods. People are struggling with that, too, and so it’s about building those community/union alliances on shared and joint struggles.
Straight Goods News:
How does the austerity agenda affect the unorganized workers who you work with through the Workers’ Action Centre?
Deena Ladd:
Well, I think it’s had a huge impact. I think the social safety net was already eroded quite a bit before the recession hit. I think many of our members who may have previously have gotten access a little bit to employment insurance now are being completely pushed onto social assistance, which is a really devastating, brutal welfare system, where people are being asked to survive on $600 a month. And so what that does to people in terms of the indignity, the degradation of poverty is brutal, right? And so I also think the austerity agenda has had a huge impact in terms of the quality of work out there. People are afraid. They’re fearful of speaking up if there is a violation of rights on their jobs, because they know that another job is very difficult to get. And we know that the Ministry of Labour does not have the resources that it needs in Ontario to enforce basic labour protections.
So again, here is a connection with public service. The public service jobs have been gutted over the last twenty years in terms of enforcement of rights. The impact is people aren’t getting those rights. So we need to be rebuilding all of the kinds of regulation of the labour market by having more workers work in those jobs, and also by ensuring that those rights are expanded and protected for people in precarious employment.
by Ish Theilheimer, video by Samantha Bayard, transcription by Susan Huebert
[On Feb 6, 2013, Straight Goods News spoke with Paul Booth at the first national CUPE conference on bargaining. Booth was a leader in the 1960s at the beginning of the US student movement as National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society, the largest organization of the emerging youth movement. In 1965 he directed the first march on Washington, D.C against the War in Vietnam and issued the statement to "build not burn" and organized the first sit-in at the Chase Manhattan Bank exposing it as a "partner in Apartheid". He joined the labor movement in 1966 as Research Director for the United Packinghouse Workers of America and then joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in 1974, working to build Illinois AFSCME (Council 31) and then moving to the International as Organizing Director for 10 years and now as Executive Assistant to President Jerry McEntee.]
Paul Booth:
The attacks on us have been intensified in the last couple of years, but they've been going on for the whole 35 or 40 years of the reactionary conservative ideological assault in the States and the neoliberal assault around the world. So we're experiencing what many other workers are experiencing around the world. It's been particularly acute in the American public services. America has a very energetic right wing that's playing out to the tax-aversion of many of the voters, and they were very successful in the November 2010 elections.
And so they chose to take the mandate that they had achieved politically in those elections to engage in a frontal assault, not just on public services, but on the very rights to bargain collectively that we have long enjoyed in most of the United States. So we were attacked directly and rapidly, and the first lesson that I'm here to share with my colleagues in the north is to be prepared to respond rapidly and to respond broadly and deeply. We would not have survived those onslaughts had we not had an incredible upsurge of member mobilization, participation, and militancy that we have enjoyed, and that is the major way that we have survived over the last two years.
Straight Goods News:
You've survived. Tell me about that, because the story we get in the mainstream media is that labour in the United States — public service, unions are being annihilated, but you say you've survived. Tell me about that story.
Paul Booth:
We have done much better than survive. We've suffered significant defeats. I don't mean to minimize any of the defeats in Wisconsin, where we not only lost our collective bargaining rights, but the whole framework of the collective bargaining system, we lost many of our members have fallen away, where they took substantial cuts in their take-home payover 10 percent for the average public employee in Wisconsin, in Michigan and Indiana where the new Right to Work law has been enacted, and many other places, there have been significant defeats. But next to those defeats have been battles on the same subjects where we've turned back the opposition.
Even where Republicans proclaimed that they had the votes, it turned out that because of the reaction of public pressure — pressure from our members, but also from our members' neighbours, our members' relatives, our members' friends, and the citizens at large — they held off from implementing plans that they had. And then we recently had a national election in the States that went much more favourably for organized labour; the re-election of Barack Obama. It's not a cure to all of the ills we face. It's not even a first line of defence, but it's a setback for the right wing. They know that, and they're a little bit back on their heels. And now we have to take this moment of breathing room to try to start rolling back some of defeats we've suffered, and to try to establish a new round of gains for American workers.
Paul Booth says be prepared to respond rapidly, broadly and deeply to attacks on public sector workers and public services.
Straight Goods News:
You mentioned some victories, which we're probably not aware of. Not many Canadians would be aware of these victories. Tell us about one or two of them if you can, especially if they're good examples of things to learn from.
Paul Booth:
So, let's start with Florida, a very tough jurisdiction for us to work in. Two years ago, the new governor — his name is Rick Scott, a guy who made hundreds of millions of dollars as a financier in the private hospital industry and was convicted of the largest fraud of the American Medicare system — nevertheless, he still walked away with a couple of hundred million dollars. He invested it in getting himself elected governor of Florida. They planned to privatize half of the state prisons in one fell swoop. All of the prisons south of the middle of the state were going to be turned over to one private prison operating company, and they had in the Florida State Senate a ten-vote majority for their party — for the Republican party — and the labour movement found eleven Republican state senators who resisted every pressure that was put onto them and voted to defend the unions. They were called in individually by Jeb Bush.
Jeb Bush is the older brother of the great George Bush that you recall. They were worked over by the governor. He went to their offices. He threatened them, he gave them every kind of blandishment, and they stood with us. They stood with us because their neighbours and the public service workers that they knew — the firefighters and the cops and the social service workers and the librarians — had talked to them and had made it clear that this was a terrible thing and that they stood with the prison workers, and then we were all in a fight to defend our pensions against this legislations. That didn't go so well. We've had a setback on the Florida retirement system. It's a very well-funded system, but it's still one that they wanted to take steps at diminishing. So we have these fights all over the country that are going on. Right now as we're standing here, the House of Representatives in the state of Missouri is having a hearing on Right to Work. We think that we have the means to defeat it in Missouri, but they're going to try very hard to enact it. They're inspired by what happened in Michigan last fall.
Straight Goods News:
You mentioned an upsurge from the rank and file in resistance to the privatization and austerity agenda. Tell me about that upsurge. We're not hearing that either in the news.
Paul Booth:
Well, think back two years. Think back two years to Wisconsin. Think back to Feb 11, 2011, which is two years ago this coming Monday, when the governor introduced the bill to terminate public employee collective bargaining. His plan was to have it enacted into law within five days. And the graduate teaching assistants from the University of Wisconsin marched up State Street and walked into the state capitol and took over the building. And the next day the high school students from the four Madison-area high schools walked out of class, marched downtown, and joined them. And they stayed overnight. And then the workers from our membership, public school teachers, construction workers, manufacturing workers, workers from every walk of life, every part of the labour movement joined them and stayed in the state capitol, occupied the building. The police department unions were there with us, the firefighters were there with us, and for 28 days, we prevented the legislature — the majority prepared to vote us out of business — from taking the action that they ultimately did. They ultimately did it in a way that was actually illegal, but we had political courts in the States, so they got upheld by a four to three vote at the state supreme court even though they did it without proper notice, open meetings, etc.
But that inspired American workers to fight back, and continues to inspire them. And even though we have suffered additional setbacks we tried to remove that governor from office, and we came up short. But actually, 47 percent of the voters in Wisconsin voted for regime change. It was very bold, what we tried to do. It was a bridge too far, but we are still in the fight. And that happened because tens of thousands of our members who had been perhaps passive about their union — loyal, but passive about their union — realized that the only way that their standard of living and their organization, the things that they enjoyed and took for granted, was going to be preserved was that they took matters into their own hands. "We have to do this ourselves," they realized. And so they did it.
They were there. They went out in the cold of the winter, not quite as cold as you get up here, but it was pretty cold, and circulated petitions and stood on street corners and talked to their neighbours and went to their churches, and talked to their friends and relatives and persuaded many of their fellow citizens that what was being done was wrong and was going to be harmful to everybody, not just to the public employee unions. And we will ultimately win that fight in Wisconsin. We will be in that battle for one day longer than the right-wingers are going to be in it, because that's going to be the day on which we prevail.
Straight Goods News:
So again, to summarize, what's the lesson for Canadian workers facing this nation's onslaught?
Paul Booth:
Well, number one: Be prepared for a serious escalation of the challenge to the things that you enjoy. The things that you maybe take for granted, don't take them for granted any more. Be prepared to fight to defend them. Number two is that it's up to you. It's up to you as individuals collectively to mobilize. Mobilizing means not just marching. It means talking about the subjects to your neighbours who are not in unions, perhaps, to your friends, even your relatives, who don't necessarily understand how important it is for the common good of Canada, for the common good of all of our countries for there to be a strong and powerful labour movement. And be prepared to explain that and get a voice, your own voice. It's your own voice that can move mountains. And then reach out. Have your organizations, your trade unions reach out to every possible colleague and ally, not just those in the same political party, but in every political party, every persuasion. The good of our society is at stake, of all our societies is at stake. The standard of living we've attained is at risk, and the first line of defence is a strong labour movement.
from The Record
The Record in Kitchener, Ontario reports that city council is looking at cost-saving measures for its fire department, including privatization. Outrage at the generosity of an arbitrated contract settlement prompted one veteran councillor to point to the privatized fire services in some American cities, but a spokesman for the Ontario Professional Firefighters' Association noted that US privatization experiments tended to be short ones when lives on are the line.
