Ontario premier threatens pre-emptive back-to-work law.
by Thomas Walkom
In the dead heat of early August, the air is heavy with languor. Even the bees take it easy.
The new school year still seems years away. Contract negotiators for Ontario's school boards — as well as their teaching union counterparts — slumber peacefully in their hammocks.
True, the teachers' collective agreements technically expire at the beginning of September. True too, the unions — as usual — are talking tough while the boards and government cry poor.
But this is life as always. As they doze in the mellow August sun, the school trustees and union leaders know there's still plenty of time to make deals — even if, as is usually the case, they are inked well after September 1 and then applied retroactively.
After all, it's not as if the teachers are on strike, or even threatening to strike come Labour Day.
And then into this Eden rides Premier Dalton McGuinty. Teachers may not be on strike. But as the Star reported recently, he says he'll legislate them back to work by the beginning of September anyway.
Huh?
Welcome to the new era of labour relations in Canada. In the past, governments waited until labour disputes began before intervening. Even then they did so reluctantly, saving their statutory power for strikes and lockouts that were important.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's federal Conservative government broke new ground when it started legislating Air Canada workers back to work just for threatening to strike.
But McGuinty's Ontario Liberal government has gone even further. It's promising to legislate an end to a non-existent strike that has never been threatened…
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About Thomas Walkom
Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star national affairs columnist, writes on political economy.
The winner of two national newspaper awards (foreign reporting and column writing), he was the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist for eight years. Before that, he wrote for the Globe and Mail - first as an Ottawa parliamentary reporter, then as Tokyo bureau chief.
He has a PhD in economics from the University of Toronto and is author of Rae Days: the rise and follies of the NDP, a book on Ontario’s first New Democratic Party government, that managed to make the best sellers’ list for about five minutes.
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