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February 21, 2012 - No. 24
Reactionary Drummond Report
Boundless Enthusiasm for Failed Economics
Ontario
Legislature
• First Session of 40th Parliament Set to
Resume
Reactionary
Drummond
Report
• Boundless Enthusiasm for Failed Economics
- Steve Rutchinski
• McGuinty's Threats and
Provocations Against
Ontario Public Sector Workers - Dan Cerri
• Health Care Cuts Disguised as Reforms:
Ontario Health Coalition - Rob Woodhouse
Battle
for
Toronto
• Unite with City Workers to Defeat Ford
Regime
• Motion to Exempt Public Services from Free Trade
Deal Goes Before Toronto City Council - Janice Murray
Rights
of
Workers
in
Education
• Workers Must Develop New Forms of Struggle
for the New Conditions - Christine Nugent
• Letter to the Editor
Ontario Legislature
First Session of 40th Parliament Set to Resume
The First Session of the 40th Parliament of Ontario, in
recess since December 6, 2011, is
set to resume on February 21. There are six government bills and 22
private members'
bills being brought forward from the last session.
This session of the Ontario Legislature begins
just days after the Drummond Report on the reform of Ontario's public
services was released last week. There has
been a great deal of disinformation about the Drummond Report that
decontextualizes the actual problems facing the people of Ontario,
problems caused by the crisis of capitalism and exacerbated by
successive governments from the
Bob Rae and Harris governments of the early 1990s till now. The
workers and people of Ontario must be vigilant as the McGuinty Liberals
and the parties of the rich in the legislature use the Drummond Report
in various ways to blackmail and extort monies from Ontarians and the
public treasury to finance private
interests at the expense of public right. The anti-social proposals of
the Drummond Report will not solve the economic and political crisis
that Ontarians are facing, and will serve to exacerbate these crises.
The proposals are wholly irrational. Only the workers can resolve the
crisis by
defeating the anti-social proposals of the
Drummond Report, by continuing to build their resistance to the
anti-social offensive of the rich in Ontario, building the Worker's
Opposition, and fighting for a new direction in the economy that would
guarantee the rights of all.
Ontario Political Forum will be reporting on
the developments in the legislature.
Reactionary Drummond Report
Boundless Enthusiasm for Failed Economics
- Steve Rutchinski -
The thing that stands out about the Drummond Report is
not that the Mike Harris "Common Sense"
anti-social offensive pales in comparison. No. It is its boundless
enthusiasm for failed economics.
No amount of "austerity measures" are going to overcome
the crisis. If anti-social measures were the solution that the social
welfare state could not provide to stave off crisis for the capitalist
system, the world, including Ontario, would not be facing chaos in the
economy, politics and other spheres of life today.
Ontario has not recovered from these same bankrupt
politics from the Mike Harris (and Bob Rae) era even after more than
two decades. Canada has never recovered from the International Monetary
Fund-dictated cuts of
federal transfer payments intended to support pan-Canadian standards in
social services, from health care, to education,
public housing etc. during the Chretien/Martin era. The proof of this
pudding is in the eating.
Yet the Drummond Commission calls for more of the same.
It calls on government to hold public service investments to no more
than 0.8 per cent through 2017. That is a net decrease in social
program and public service investment given that the cost-of-living in
Ontario rose at more than 2.4 per cent last
year. The Commission recommends health care spending increases be
capped at 2.5 percent, education at 1.0 percent and social programs at
0.5 percent.
It is high time such failed economics are put to rest.
On top of the injury such measures will inflict upon society, is the
insult that the workers and people of Ontario should accept continued
retrogression as the new normal for the foreseeable future, to
2017 and beyond.
The necessity is for a new direction for the economy.
Nation-building is the order of the day. It has to be taken up
seriously. Who will lift this banner and carry it forward? Only the
workers opposition! A modern nation-building project calls for courage
and a plan of action based on modern definitions. By putting
the well-being of all human beings at centre stage, a new direction for
society can be found. The well-being of Canadians cannot be left to the
mercy of "market forces." It has to be guaranteed and far from being a
drain on society, the social investment required to do so will create
the conditions for a sound and
prosperous society.
For all its reactionary bluster, the Drummond Report
says nothing that governments at the federal, provincial and municipal
level are not already doing: blindly refusing to acknowledge that there
is an alterative to this wretched status quo. It is the mission and
duty of the workers opposition to elaborate its own
nation building project and open the path to social progress for the
entire society.
McGuinty's Threats and Provocations
Against Ontario
Public Sector Workers
- Dan Cerri -
 In the weeks leading up to
the release of the Drummond
Report, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty delivered his own anti-social
warnings against public sector workers. In speeches
delivered to audiences at the Canadian Club in Toronto on January 24
and in Ottawa on February 9, he warned that public
sector workers cannot expect increases to their salaries or wages in
upcoming rounds of collective bargaining. He also warned that labour
strife might not be avoided. McGuinty's speeches are part of the
all-sided threats and provocations instigated by the rich and their
political representatives against all workers and
people in Ontario.
At the Toronto speech, McGuinty was quoted by the Globe
and Mail as saying: "doctors, nurses, teachers and one million
public
sector workers in Ontario will have to hold their salary demands in
check while the province eliminates a $16-billion deficit." At the
Ottawa speech he was quoted by the Toronto
Star
as saying: "I can guarantee our government will negotiate firmly to a
result that keeps us on a sure and steady path to eliminate the
deficit." The Star report
also quoted McGuinty as warning that there
could be labour strife as a consequence.
McGuinty's comments are amongst the strongest delivered
by the premier himself against public sector workers. His provocations
of possible
labour strife are particularly new to his repertoire. McGuinty has been
known to use various agents such as the College Employer Council, the
Ontario Labour Relations Board and the
Commission on Reform of Ontario's Public Services to carry out the
anti-social offensive. He now seems confident to deliver his own
anti-social views, no less to an audience at one of Canada's
oldest institutions that represents particular interests of the rich.
McGuinty's demands for more concessions from public
sector workers signal a sharpening of the class struggle and expose
once again the class-based character of the state and its institutions
including the party in power and the premier. McGuinty's comments
resemble the dictate of Harper and Ford acting as
the prerogative power while the people who produce the wealth the
province depends on for its well-being are held in contempt.
McGuinty's dictate to workers is that they must reduce
their claim, even within the collective bargaining process, on the
social wealth that they collectively produced through
their labour and provision of services. All workers in Ontario must
oppose this dictate. It is no solution to the crisis. It will mean a
real loss to their own livelihoods
but will also mean an overall loss to the province as more wealth is
taken out of the economy. Combined with cuts to public services under
the guise of an independent review by Don Drummond, workers require
their own ways of defending public
right. Workers need their own independent politics and organizations to
voice their
resistance to
the all-sided attacks by the state in the service of the rich and their
monopolies.
Health Care Cuts Disguised as Reforms:
Ontario Health Coalition
- Rob Woodhouse -
 In advance of the Drummond Report being
released this
past week, the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) published an analysis of
health care cuts under the title, First
Do
No
Harm:
Putting
Improved
Access
and
Accountability
at
the
Centre
of
Ontario's
Health
Care
Reform.
The
aim
of
the
OHC
publication is
to combat some of the misinformation Drummond uses to justify the
McGuinty government's aggressive anti-people offensive in health care.
The OHC is an association of health care workers, health care worker
unions and organizations of health care users. The OHC says its report,
"is a response to the ill-considered
proposals that cloak health care cutbacks under the guise of reform."
Limits to Health Spending
Increase Means Service Cuts
The OHC says the level of rationing of care and unmet
needs is already unacceptable in Ontario and limiting spending
increases as proposed by Drummond while need is increasing will make
this situation worse. Limiting increases means cutting services. Health
spending restraints already put in place by the McGuinty
government limit health spending growth to 3.6 per cent at a time of
increasing demand. The OHC cites the Auditor
General's
Report
2011 which
calculated the 3.6 per cent limit will result in $3 billion in
underfunding of
hospitals and OHIP.
Drummond has called for even tighter restraints on
health spending than those criticized by the
Auditor General. Drummond's 2.5 per cent increase limit
will result in a $4 billion shortfall at the current level of services.
The OHC points out that the Auditor General also questioned
the viability of government's strategy of reducing costs by moving more
patients out of hospitals into home care and long-term care homes given
the already-existing waiting lists and backlogs for these services
which will only be compounded by budget restraints.
Dumping patients, especially seniors, into community
care is the key strategy of the McGuinty government for cost cutting in
health care. The OHC reports that this strategy results in unmet
patient need cascading from underfunded hospitals, to underfunded
long-term care homes and landing in community care,
which is underfunded, disorganized, highly privatized and riddled with
user fees. The following is an outline of some of the issues in each of
these levels of care raised in the OHC report.
Hospitals
Since 1990, 18,500 of Ontario's hospital beds have been
cut. One result has been a reduction of acute and complex care beds,
which have been reduced by 40 per cent since 1990. Another result is
dangerous
overcrowding of Ontario hospitals. There is no room for another $1
billion in cuts to hospitals as Drummond
is recommending.
The occupancy rate of Ontario hospital beds is 98 per
cent,
higher than any jurisdiction where occupancy rates are kept. The
average for Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries is 75 per cent occupancy. An occupancy rate of 85 per cent
is recommended for effective control of hospital-borne infections and
for proper patient flow. The high occupancy
rate, for example, results in a standing patient backlog of 600
patients stuck in emergency room beds at any given time, which
represents 4 per cent of Ontario's acute care beds. The
bed-to-population ratio
in Ontario is the lowest in Canada and is the fourth lowest in the OECD
countries. To bring Ontario up to the Canadian
average bed-to-population ratio would require 14,300 additional beds.
Hospital overcrowding is compounded by the underfunding
of alternative level of care (ALC) facilities and services. But
underfunding of hospitals also compounds the overcrowding of
alternative level care facilities and services and the ALC waiting
lists. One in five patients in ALC are waiting for hospital beds
that aren't available.
An important indicator of hospital overcrowding is the
high number of patients stuck in emergency wards waiting for proper
beds. At any given time, there are 600 patients waiting in emergency
rooms for beds
which puts these patients at risk from infection, delays in treatment
and other serious medical dangers.
Long-Term Care Facilities
"Without admitting it publicly," the OHC report says,
"the government's evident plan is to save money... by rationing access
to long-term care homes at levels well below population need for care."
OHC says that the agenda of the government is to impose a virtual
freeze on long-term care beds through this
underfunding. In addition to underfunding, privatization is also a
problem in long-term care because it results in "cherry picking" of low
needs patients over high needs patients based on profitability.
While the overall number of long-term beds has
increased, expansion of privatized care facilities by Harris and
McGuinty has resulted in a lack of beds corresponding to level of care
required by patients. Since 1990, there has been a reduction of 5,600
chronic care (complex continuing care) beds, a 50 per cent reduction.
The number of patients requiring higher levels of care is increasing --
with no beds for them. High numbers of these high acuity patients
is overwhelming staffing levels and other capacities at many long-term
homes.
The overall availability of long-term care beds has also
not kept pace with the need. Underfunding has resulted in a waiting
list of 24,000 for long-term care beds, with waiting times of 5 months
for patients in the community and 2.5 months for patients in hospitals.
Another 12,000 patients in long-term homes
are on a waiting list for transfers to other facilities, usually for
reunification with a spouse or for a facility in their home community.
Underfunding of all the different levels of care
interact with each other as was shown in a recent study cited in the
OHC report. The study reviewed the situation of 4,000 hospitalized
patients designated ALC patients. Of these, 2,300 patients were
awaiting long-term care
beds and 730 were awaiting hospital
level care beds, including rehabilitation beds and facilities, complex
continuing care beds, palliative care beds and convalescent care beds.
Only 135 of the ALC patients were awaiting home care arrangements. This
study shows an array of services and facilities are required and that
the Ministry of Health pretending
home care is a magic cure for ALC patients is simplistic and deceitful.
Even though present levels of funding increases are not
anywhere near enough to keep the gap between patient need and the
services available from growing, the government is imposing restraint
on long-term care funding. Calculations of the Auditor General show
that the restraint measures already announced
will result in long-term care budget increases at only half the level
of the last eight years. If the recommendations of Drummond are
implemented, the gap between need and services will grow at an even
more accelerated rate.
Home Care
The OHC report says that enhanced home care is needed,
and that some patients waiting for long-term care placement could be
redirected to home care with additional investments and supports but
this is not the government's agenda. The reality is that there has been
a standing waiting list of over 10,000 patients
waiting for home-care since 1999 and home-care continues to be poorly
organized and rationed inadequately. OHC firmly rejects the
government's claim that health care is being transferred to the
community as simply a cover for cuts to needed care and increased user
fees, particularly for seniors:
"Though the right to access publicly-funded hospital and
physician care across Canada is clearly established in the Canada
Health Act, as patients have been moved out of hospitals they
find an
array of ad hoc and
inadequate care in home care, community services
and long term care facilities. Often patients are
forced to pay out-of-pocket for needed care."
In fact, as more care was transferred to home care and
other kinds of community care, necessary supports were not provided.
Patients are in effect being dumped into home care without funding. As
the role of home care was being increased between 1999 and 2010, home
care's share of provincial health funding
actually declined, from 5.7 per cent to 4.13 per cent. Between 2004 and
2010, funding
for home care increased from $1.2 billion to $1.76 billion, but during
the same period the total number of clients increased from 350,000 to
586,000, a 40 per cent increase in funding for a 66 per cent increase
in patients. The
decline in the per-client funding
has resulted in rationed and inadequate care for home care patients.
Average per person funding for home care clients was $3,486 per client
in 2002/3 and declined to $3,003 per client in 2008/9.
Rationing of care has been officially mandated since
1999 when the Ministry of Health issued service guidelines and later a
regulation strictly limiting access to care. Rationing and poor access
to care have persisted ever since. In response to public outrage over
the caps, the government announced changes
to rationing regulations in 2008, lifting the caps on people awaiting a
long-term care bed and raising the cap for the first 30 days after
discharge from hospital to 120 hours per month and 90 hours per month
after 30 days. However, the OHC cites criticism by the Auditor
General that caps were lifted without providing
adequate funding to make this effective.
Targeting Seniors
The OHC report has an entire section dealing with the
implications of the statement that "one per cent of the population that
accounts for 34 per cent of our health care spending and the ten per
cent of the population that accounts for nearly 80 per cent of our
health care spending." This formula was first put forward
by the Ontario Hospital Association, the hospital management
organization, then promoted in the media by Drummond and most recently
repeated by Health Minister Deb Mathews when she announced the Ontario
Action Plan for Health Care.
Based on this formula, Drummond has proposed targeting
cuts of up to 10-20 per cent on this one strata to reduce health
spending by
$800 million to $1.5 billion. OHC calls this proposal an attack on the
most vulnerable, frail seniors, the ones most in need of care and the
least able to afford to purchase required care.
It targets health services to the neediest of patients without giving
any consideration to their assessed needs or patient risk whatsoever.
The OHC report denounces the claim Drummond makes that reducing care
for seniors represents a "significant opportunity to achieve savings."
This claim is made without any
evidence that the services being provided are not needed or that there
is a viable alternative to providing these services.
Drummond Commission an
Abuse of Process
As well as opposing the measures being implement to
reduce patient care, the OHC report also rejects the process being used
in rolling out changes to Ontario's health care system.
Executive dictate and secrecy marginalize patients, workers performing
the services, the public and even the legislature from
this matter of important public interests.
"The public has never been given opportunity to debate,
nor provide any meaningful input into the restructuring plans underway
for months behind the scenes. Ontario's Minister of Health has launched
a new period of health reforms without benefit of a discussion paper,
legislative debate, or public consultation
of any kind. Basic parliamentary processes have been omitted, including
the establishment of Standing Committees of the Legislature with proper
pre-budget hearings open to the public across Ontario."
Battle for Toronto
Unite with City Workers to Defeat Ford Regime
 On February 13, 6,000 City
of Toronto outside
workers, members of CUPE Local 416 ratified a contract proposal from
the city. Details of the vote were not released because of ongoing
negotiations between Local 79 and the city, but Local 416 says the
contract proposals were ratified by a large majority
of those voting. Two days later, the contract was approved by City
Council with 35 of the 45 seat council approving the contract with no
votes against. Several councillors boycotted the vote on the contract
in protest against the anti-worker bargaining stance of the
administration. Councillors involved in other disputes
with Ford also absented themselves from the vote.
A spokesperson for Local 416 said that the contract
included many concessions but had been recommended to the membership as
the best that could be achieved in the present situation. The city had
threatened to unilaterally put in place a new set of work arrangements
effective February 12 if the union did not
agree to its demands. These arrangements, announced by the
administration in a press conference, included elimination of job
security provisions, elimination of work rules and elimination of union
dues check off.
Several of the measures in the Ford administration final
offer against job security and work rules were modified in the final
contract proposal. A summary of the new four-year contract has been
released by Local 416 outlining the contract changes, including:
- pay raises of 4.5 per cent on the base rate in the
last two
years of the contract; a 0.5 per cent base rate increase and a 1.5 per
cent lump sum in
the
second year; no wage increase the first year; and reduced benefits;
- protection against contracting out for workers with 15
years seniority; a reduction of current protection but greater
protection than the 25 years service limit proposed by the city;
- reductions in bumping rights and job posting
provisions, but reductions far above the free hand demanded in the
city's previous offer; and
- an essential services agreement, which eliminates
paramedics'
right to strike without their inclusion in full binding arbitration;
some conditions will be eligible for arbitration; some outstanding
issues will go to arbitration.
Following the vote at City Council, Ford presented the
contract with the outside workers in triumphalist terms. He
called it a victory for "take it or leave it" bargaining, boasting that
he
had taken $100 million out of the workers' pockets, including $54
million from retirees' benefits. The monopoly media
took up the hype about a total victory by Ford. Ignoring the boycott by
opposition councillors, the media presented the council vote as
"unanimous approval." Opposition councillors, however, called Ford's
boasting about total victory "a wild exaggeration."
While Ford may have been successful on forcing
concessions on the outside workers, the battle for Toronto is far from
over. There is still widespread opposition to Ford's agenda of
eliminating services, imposing user fees and privatization. This
opposition will continue to grow as his agenda is implemented.
As well, civic workers have no choice but to find ways to continue the
struggle to defend their livelihoods and the services they deliver.
Workers are realizing that new forms of struggle have to be developed
to deal with the hooliganism of the Ford regime and the new situation
confronting them.
At the press event organized by the Ford administration
following the council vote on the outside workers' contract, the city's
head negotiator Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday launched into an attack on
the city workers in CUPE Local 79. Holyday said the CUPE Local 416
agreement
and the same aggressive approach will be used as a template. Referring
to the Local 416
negotiations, Holyday said, "This lets the other unions know we are
dead serious about what we intend to do." This was immediately rejected
by a CUPE spokesperson who said that Local 79 workers have their own
situation and would not agree
to any template based on city negotiations with other bargaining units.
Eighteen thousand Local 79 members serve as nurses,
planners, clerks, social service employees, cleaners, court services
staff, ambulance dispatchers, child care workers and as providers of
other public services. Local 79 is Canada's largest municipal workers'
bargaining unit and one of the oldest, with contracts
with the city since 1941. The local has been engaged with the city in
negotiations since November 2011. Negotiations were stalled by the
city's refusal to hand over financial and payroll information to the
union and its aggressive approach to bargaining. Talks have been
continuing with dates set through February.
While union negotiators have kept a very low media
profile, it is known that Local 79 is facing the same issues as
Local 416 -- privatization, service cuts and job cuts. As these talks
are
ongoing, anti-worker measures previously approved for the 2012 city
budget are being implemented. These include privatization
and job cuts affecting Local 79 members within the terms of the
existing collective agreement. On February 8 for example, the Toronto
Police Service signed a $1.7 million one-year contract with a private
cleaning company, eliminating 100 Local 79 members' jobs. Another 900
cleaning jobs in municipal buildings,
daycares, social housing and long-term care facilities are also on the
chopping block. Among those who could lose their jobs are Local 79
members who were hired to be cleaners as part of a poverty-reduction
initiative.
Despite Ford's blustering, the Battle for Toronto is not
over. It is still to be decided: Will Toronto be or go on being a city
of the rich, the financiers, speculators and domestic and foreign
monopolies represented by the Ford regime where workers and other
people are powerless and degraded? Or will the workers'
and people's fight continue to advance, to limit, defeat and reverse
the Ford regime's agenda as part of Canadians' whole fight against
neoliberal retrogression and monopoly right? The latter is the only
acceptable outcome. At this time, this means above all uniting with the
city workers in the ongoing struggle to
defeat the Ford regime.
Motion to Exempt Public Services from Free Trade
Deal Goes Before Toronto City Council
- Janice Murray -
On
February
13,
a
motion
asking the Province of
Ontario to exempt Toronto from the Canada-European Union (EU)
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) went before the
Executive Committee of Toronto City Council.
 In
documents
submitted to the committee before its
meeting and in interventions at the February 13 meeting, organizations
such as the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the Good Jobs for
All Coalition, the Toronto Food Policy Committee, the United
Steelworkers, the Council of Canadians, and others
presented well-documented arguments as to why the city should support
this motion. Many of these arguments focussed on the effect of CETA on
public services and on municipal procurement policies. The documents
and a number of the presentations can be found here.
The Toronto Food Policy Council, a sub-committee of the
Board of Health, for example, urged the executive committee to vote to
exclude Toronto from CETA stating, "If Canada signs on to CETA progress
made on food security and public health by City Council over the last
decade would be threatened." "The city's local food procurement policy
strengthens the local
economy, supports local farmers and protects the local environment," it
said.
The Good Jobs for All Coalition in its letter spoke to
the importance of municipal procurement and further stated that "leaked
documents from CETA negotiations also make clear that Canada is under
increasing pressure to commit to trade rules that would encourage the
privatization of public services (water,
transit, energy, postal). European multinational corporations that have
already dismantled publicly delivered transit, energy and water systems
across the EU, now want to privatize Canada's remaining public
services. This would lead to higher rates, weakened safety and
environmental regulations, elimination of good-paying,
accessible jobs."
Among the materials before the executive committee for
its consideration was the resolution passed in December by Hamilton
City Council which also asks the province to consider an exemption of
the city from CETA and to take other measures to protect the powers of
local municipalities to use public procurement,
services and investment to create jobs, protect the environment and
encourage local investment. A resolution passed by Kingston council was
also included.
The background report by city staff explained CETA's
impacts on the city as follows:
"The primary consideration for the City of Toronto (and
many other Federation of Canadian Municipalities member cities) relates
to sub-national procurement. The
City of Toronto
has used 'value-based procurement' to mandate that certain construction
projects hire and provide apprenticeship hours to youth from priority
neighbourhoods. The City also has a local food procurement policy to
"reduce the greenhouse gas
emissions associated with the provision of food purchased for City
operations and
facilities, and support local farmers."
Similar policies are employed by city agencies; in
accordance with provincial requirements, Toronto Transit Commission
policy states that transit
vehicles
procured using any sources of provincial funding must have at least 25
per cent
Canadian
content.
"Strategic procurement can also be used to help
strengthen and expand Toronto, Ontario and Canada-based companies by
'pulling' locally
developed innovative products and services into the marketplace,
helping create local jobs
and expand the tax base. Ontario's feed-in tariff program to develop
renewable energy, for
example, contains a local manufacturing content requirement."
Who CETA Serves
One paper presented to the City of Toronto executive
committee -- by an organization called the "Canada Europe Roundtable
for
Business" -- was notable in its wholehearted support for CETA. It
states that its membership consists of 115 CEOs who have "been actively
involved in helping make
CETA negotiations become a reality." These include monopolies such as
ArcelorMittal, Rio Tinto, Kruger, Xstrata, Monsanto,Veolia
Environmental Services, Manulife and a number of pharmaceutical
monopolies such
as Bayer, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Merck.
Amended
Resolution on CETA Goes before City
Council
Following the discussion in the Executive Committee a
substantially rewritten resolution was adopted by the Committee and
this resolution will go before Toronto City Council for approval on
March 5. The revised resolution does not call for the province to
exempt the City of Toronto from CETA.
The resolution reads:
"That City Council:
1. Endorse the Federation of Canadian Municipalities'
(FCM) seven principles for the Federal Government to apply to the
Canada-European Union EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
(CETA) and future trade deals
2. Encourage the Federal Government of Canada and the
Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific
Gateway to continue consultation with FCM in order to address municipal
concerns in relation to trade deals
3. Request the Province of Ontario to accelerate direct
dialogue with City of Toronto officials to ensure that the City of
Toronto's municipal rights are protected, with particular attention to:
a. The low procurement thresholds of $340,600 for goods
and services and $8.5 million for construction
b. Local procurement needs
c. Dispute resolution mechanism
4. Communicate its position to the Federal Government of
Canada, the Province of Ontario and the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities.
Ontario
Municipal Councils Pass Motions on
CETA
In late 2011 a number of municipal councils passed
resolutions raising their concerns about the effect of CETA on
municipal governance and services. Resolutions passed by the councils
in Hamilton, Stratford, French River, Township of Pelee, County of
Essex and the Township of Alnwick/Haldimand
request that the province issue a clear exemption either of their own
municipality or of all municipalities from CETA. Other resolutions
which call on the federal and provincial governments to respect the
municipal sector's interests in ongoing negotiations with the EU and to
adopt the guidelines put forward by the
Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Association of Ontario
Municipalities were passed in Windsor, Mississauga, Brantford, Barrie,
Kingston and Quinte West.
Rights of Workers in Education
Workers Must Develop New Forms of Struggle
for the New
Conditions
- Christine Nugent -
Ontario Colleges Strike, Algonquin College,
2006
|
As public sector
workers are attacked in order to open space for privatization of public
services, public
sector managers are using aggressive new tactics in collective
bargaining to suppress the workers' resistance. These tactics mirror
the arrogant "take it or leave it" dictate that has become the method
of international monopolies and other private sector employers to
collective bargaining.
One of the tactics being used in public sector
negotiations is to pretend the workers' union doesn't even exist.
Management stops negotiating and simply declares that as of a certain
date, new wages and conditions will be in effect -- take it or leave
it.
This was what the Ford hooligans did in the recent negotiations
with the City of Toronto outside workers and what the College
Employer Council did during negotiations with community college
workers. The University of Toronto administration has adopted the same
method in current collective bargaining with U of T teaching/research
assistants.
To many workers, this seems like a violation of the aim
of the Ontario
Labour
Relations
Act (OLRA). In
part, this perception is a result of the specious way the OLRA has
always been promoted. But mostly this feeling of a violation taking
place arises because workers can see that management
has thrown the old way of doing things out the window. In fact, the
OLRA has always been stacked in favour of the rich, but management is
using their rights under the Act in a new way because there is a new
situation in the struggle between workers and the rich.
This new situation is the intense global economic crisis
and the retreat of the workers' movement under the pressure of this
crisis. The rich are no longer interested in maintaining the
equilibrium in labour relations established in the post-war period.
They are gripped in crisis and are determined to resolve the
crisis in their own favour with an aggressive offensive on wages,
working conditions and union busting. Although it seems like this
offensive is outside the perceived spirit of labour relations law, the
OLRA not only allows the rich to carry on their assault on workers but
also facilitates this assault by keeping workers'
hands tied.
The OLRA has long been promoted as a legal framework
which recognizes the rights of two equal parties, management and
workers, and which ensures collective bargaining in good faith by both
parties. If an agreement can't be reached, workers and management can
test the validity of their respective claims
in the market through a strike or a lockout. But as recent events show,
management has another option within the OLRA besides the options of
continuing to negotiate or a legal lockout. The OLRA allows management,
after certain legal formalities are followed, to throw recognition of
any collectivity of workers
out the window and to begin dictating terms of work to individual
workers.
The main elements of the current OLRA, as is the case
for labour laws in most of the country, were established in the period
toward the end of World War II and the immediate post-war period. This
was a period of an unprecedented surge in the workers' movement.
Millions of workers joined industrial unions
and launched struggles for improved wages, working conditions and union
recognition. In 1946-47 there were 2,992,00 days lost to the rich from
strikes in Ontario, leading to the passing of the OLRA in 1950. From
1956-59 there were 4,470,000 strike days, leading to the revamping of
the OLRA in 1960.
The
aim of the labour law was to establish equilibrium
based on containing the surging workers' movement so the rich could
carry out their post-war expansion. The workers' movement was tied up
with labour laws that minimized the strength of its numbers and
organization while placing only minor restrictions
on employers' right to do as they pleased. But in return, the workers
were to receive a certain standard of living and security, both during
their working lives and in retirement. Today in the new situation,
the rich are no longer interested in an equilibrium and are pressing
hard to drive down standard Canadian wages, eliminate pensions and bust
unions.
In the public sector negotiations, management can gamble
on a strike even more recklessly than the private sector since profits
are not at risk and governments show no commitment whatsoever to
ensuring
public services. Strikes can even produce a windfall for public service
budgets. More and more public sector
employers are using their "take it or leave it" option under the OLRA
against workers' resistance to job cuts, privatization and service
reductions. Below is a brief outline how this option has been used
in three recent public sector negotiations:
Community Colleges
In 2008 a new Colleges
Collective
Bargaining
Act was
passed to bring community college labour legislation in line with the
OLRA. Previous to that, the terms of college collective agreements
remained in place between one agreement expiring and the next one being
signed. Now, after a No Board report, there can be a strike, a lockout
or the colleges can simply declare new
wages and terms of work as they please. The colleges immediately used
this power in the 2009 negotiations with full-time and partial
load faculty. Letters were simply sent out to all faculty stating the
new wages and terms and the date
they would take effect.
City of Toronto Outside
Workers
The hooligan Ford administration took this aggressive
method even further in negotiations with the 6,000 outside civic
workers with the aim of clearing the way for increased privatization of
services. City negotiators released the unilateral declaration of new
wage, benefit and work rules to the media in a press
conference and announced that the new terms would come into effect on
February 12, the legal strike/lockout deadline. The new work rules
included a complete gutting of job security, seniority and ending union
dues checkoff.
University of Toronto
Four thousand graduate students employed as
teaching/research
assistants (TAs, RAs) have been
negotiating with the University of Toronto for seven months to defend
their minimal livelihoods from being reduced by the administration and
to resist being forced to do more unpaid work for
the university at the expense of their own research and studies. In
Rally
for
University
of
Toronto
teaching
and
research
assistants,
February
16,
2012.
|
this case, the administration is using their "take it or leave it"
option in an attempt to undermine the union. The administration sent
all the TAs and RAs a letter announcing that new (hire) wages would be
in effect from the time of the legal strike
date along with unilateral changes to the work arrangements.
Workers can and are developing new forms of resisting
these aggressive tactics of the rich arising from the new situation.
Workers resistance and organization can ensure that the crisis is
resolved in their favour.
Letter to the Editor
 I would like to thank Ontario Political Forum for
informing people about the situation of graduate students represented
by CUPE Local 3902 now that the administration of the University of
Toronto has forced us into a countdown to a strike.
Over many years, an arrangement has developed under
which graduate students are provided a minimal livelihood from public
funds to continue their own studies and independent research in
exchange for working for the university's professors as teaching
assistants and as research assistants. The public good
is served by these arrangements in three important ways: 1) most of the
teaching of undergraduates is done by graduate students; 2) most of the
innovative breakthroughs in research are made by graduate students; 3)
higher education and research at the highest level is a possibility for
all based on ability, not just
for the sons and daughters of the rich.
The general public understands this arrangement, in
which graduates are both students and employees of the university, as
necessary to provide the society with scientific, technical and
cultural progress and the other benefits of higher learning. What is
not so well understood by the public is that the administration
of the University of Toronto is trying to smash these long-standing
arrangements with a very narrow cost-cutting approach to the
relationship between graduate students and the university. Their
approach amounts to a kind of vandalism that threatens one of the
foundations of this important public institution and
the services it provides to the society.
Graduate students see the vandalism of the U of T
administration as part of the wrecking of public services that the rich
and their political representatives are carrying out right across the
broader public sector.
Public sector workers are defending themselves from
these attacks and as they defend their livelihoods they are also
defending the public services they deliver. The graduate students at
the U of T, who are both students and employees of the university, are
also determined to do our part in beating back the retrogressive
attack on public sector workers and public services. We are defending
our livelihoods from cuts by the administration. We are defending the
innovative research we do and which society needs. We are defending the
quality of higher education for ourselves, for future graduate students
and for the public good.
University of Toronto
graduate student
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