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Stand Up for Public
Education Stand Up for Public Education June 19 Windsor Rally: Negotiate Don't LegislateAll the unions that represent education
workers in the
Windsor public school system continue to
oppose the McGuinty government's attacks on their working conditions
and students learning conditions. At a
previous action on June 1, some 500 education workers and supporters
rallied at Windsor-West MPP Teresa Piruzza's office. (See Ontario Political Forum, June 7,
2012 - No. 36) They are now taking their fight for public education to the Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Tecumseh) on June 19. The organizers write, "The budget is set to pass on June 25. We will not stand for the attack on our working and students' learning conditions. We must stand up against the budget cuts to the education sector and the strips in the Provincial Discussion Table (PDT) proposal. Now is our chance to stand up for public education and our bargaining rights!" Organizers call on everyone to bring their coworkers, family and friends, signs and noisemakers to the event and get involved in defending public education.
Teachers Rise in Defence of Public Education
They faced a provincial election which resulted in a Liberal minority government. It was the lowest turnout of voters in Ontario's history. Amid promises of "moving forward together," the McGuinty government began the negotiations with the teacher and education unions at the Provincial Discussion Table (PDT). In February, the government's set out to strip collective agreements and impose parameters unfavourable to the livelihoods of teachers and education workers. With threats of legislation to force the concessions, many organizations left the PDT and began preparing to resist making it very clear that if you hurt teachers' working conditions, you hurt students' learning conditions. The government also put pressure on everyone to settle before the launching of their now infamous provincial budget. The organizations representing the teachers and education workers took up a thorough examination of the budget and began preparing their members to oppose it and to demand that their representative members take action to defend education by turning it down. There has been much discussion about the ideological offensive of the McGuinty government in the lead up and following the tabling of the budget on March 27. The government, along with the media, waged a deafening disinformation campaign according to which austerity measures are needed to deal with the debt and deficit which must be paid down through wage freezes, cuts to social programs, user fees and other concessions. Instead of succumbing to this anti-worker attack, Ontario's working people point the finger at government corruption and pay-the-rich schemes as the cause of deficits and debts. In the Ontario Legislature, Opposition Leader Tim Hudak joined in, arguing for urgent decreases in spending to which Premier Dalton McGuinty said: "We'll be tackling the deficit in earnest, as my honourable colleague knows, in our budget, which marks the beginning of an important five-year plan. That will call upon all of us to make thoughtful, responsible and, in fact, smart choices." It became increasingly clear that the Premier's idea of "smart choices" is for people to accept attacks on the things that they require to survive. The stage was set to deliver an austerity budget to tackle the deficit and debt subsequently accompanied by draconian legislation, Bill 55, that will have severe consequences for the people in Ontario, their families and their communities. Ontarians have opposed these austerity measures in their thousands. On April 21, even before the budget was passed thanks to a deal struck by the NDP which saved McGuinty's minority government, thousands of teachers, education workers and people from all walks of life from all over Ontario demonstrated at Queen's Park at rally called specifically to condemn the austerity measures.
Such drastic measures cannot be imposed the way the government is trying to do. Unless problems facing the schools are resolved through thoughtful and creative negotiations, paying utmost attention to the rights of teachers, students and education support staff, the crisis will only deepen, which is what people already suspect is McGuinty's aim in imposing these measures to subsequently argue in favour of private schools to solve the problems. A good system of public education is required by society to advance. Attempts to privatize the system to serve the narrow private interests of certain monopolies for trained personnel are unconscionable. Increasing funds to social programs like education are a fundamental part of planning how to guarantee society's future. The working people produce more than enough wealth to pay for a good system of public education and it is the corruption of governments which funnel public monies to private consultants and financial interests such as the banks and insurance companies which should be addressed. The systematic destruction of the education system is intended to set the stage for the privatization schemes set out in the Omnibus Budget Bill 55 which contains schedules and subsections to eliminate all remaining blocks to the privatization of public services. This must not be allowed to pass! Already Ontario working people are holding rallies, demonstrations, meetings and actions against Bill 55 and demanding that it be defeated. Join the teachers, students and education staff to demand that the government negotiate, not legislate new contracts with the teachers! Oppose cutbacks to health care and education! No to Bill 55! Demand that it be defeated!  Ontario Day of Action against austerity, Queen's Park, April 21, 2012. Health Care Is a Right A New Direction Needed in Health CareTwo generations of working people have worked their whole lives under a crushing burden of taxes that were supposedly being used by government to put in place health care as well as other human services and social security that people need. Enough has been extracted from workers and others to ensure the well being of all a thousand times over.
It turns out that during the decades of high personal taxes and deficit financing resources extracted from working people were not being used to create a sustainable public system for ensuring the health for all. Instead, the health sector was used by construction companies, medical equipment, information technology and pharmaceutical suppliers, financiers and others to enrich themselves. Now, the same rich minority, who milked the public health care system dry through the old way of doing business in health care, has come up with a new way of making money off of sickness-privatization. As workers from many other public services have found out, privatization of public services is served by degrading these services. This is especially true in health care. Degrading public health care does not eliminate people's need for health care services. As the experience in the US shows, people will pay whatever they have and go into debt to buy the care they need. As the public system is degraded, people are forced to purchase proper health care from private for-profit suppliers. Costs cutting in health care lets the government keep funds to various handouts to the rich, but most importantly, underfunding and degradation of services creates opportunities for private sector investment in health care as a business. The Ontario government has kept the funding of public health care behind the increase in demand for some time. This has now been put forward by Don Drummond for adoption as official policy. Drummond is a banker appointed by the McGuinty government to organize the privatization of public services, especially health care. "Underfund the health system and let the cuts administer themselves!'-- is Drummond's slogan. Drummond has written a number of policy papers pushing for a more American-style health care system and advocates using fiscal crises as an opportunity for overcoming public opposition to privatization. Drummond set out a plan for capping overall health funding while below the increase in demand, but he recommended cuts to hospital budgets as a "shock and awe" assault on these keystones of the public health system. The outcomes for patients from cutting hospital funding at a time when demand is increasing at 4 per cent a year is a disaster that has been reported on many times and was entirely predictable. It is also predictable that as the public system is degraded, the government operates to permit the entry to private providers. In this way, capital funding of long-term care homes was simply abandoned by government and these services were opened to privatization through changes to regulations. In other words, these changes do not even require new laws which is why now, through Bill 55, ministers are being provided with unlimited powers to make whatever changes they want through regulation. Long-term home care and other care for seniors are now dominated by private interests. Scandals break out regularly regarding the outrageous treatment and the exploitation of seniors throughout the privatized long-term care and senior care sector.
The right of all to the best health care is not ensured by either the old way of doing business in health care, involving high personal taxation and deficit financing, or by the new way, involving privatization. The old way has been revealed as a collapsing Ponzi scheme and the new way is steering Canada in the direction of the American health system where if you get sick, you go broke or are simply on your own if you have no savings or assets to sell. The Workers' Opposition rejects both the old and the new ways of the rich for using health care to get richer. Society needs an entirely new direction in health care and in all of the economic and political affairs of the country. This requires stepping up the opposition to the anti-social offensive of the rich and their cuts to health care and other social services to make sure it is effective. It also means workers and their collectives must take up the problem of how to displace profit-making from the centre of health and other human services to make sure these services become human centred and meet the needs of the people. As a right not a privilege, health care must be provided with guarantees. Canadian Institute for Health Information Admits Hospital Cuts Endanger Patients
One of the outcomes of this is that patients often go into crisis and end up bouncing back to the hospitals with their condition much worse than when they were discharged and sometimes worse than when they were first admitted. A statistical report released this month by the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) gives some indication of the outcomes from the inhuman practices being followed at the hospitals in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada and Quebec. The report says that in an 11-month study period across the country, 181,551 acute care patients had to be readmitted within 30 days of being discharged, which represents 8.5 per cent of acute care patients. The readmission rate for surgical patients was 6.5 per cent, with infection as a leading cause of readmission. Among patients readmitted following C-sections, 29 percent were re-admitted for surgical wound infection. In emergency departments nine per cent of admissions are patients who were sent home from hospital too soon and had to be rushed to emergency rooms within 7 days of discharge. Infections among surgical and obstetric patients were common causes for patients readmittance to hospital through emergency rooms. The CIHI is an organization of the federal and provincial governments and while it admits to a problem that is becoming obvious to everyone, it rejects the obvious solution of keeping patients in hospitals longer. Instead it sticks with the "bed blocker" rhetoric and advocates continued dumping of patients in home care, despite the fact home care is often not available or, as the reasons for re-admissions show, not appropriate: "Hospital effects, such as shorter lengths of stay, were found to be associated with higher rates of readmission to acute care... Keeping patients longer in the hospital, however, is likely not the best way to reduce readmission rates. For example, this would increase waiting times and jeopardize the number of hospital beds available to receive new patients." CIHI provides another reason for kicking patients out of hospitals sooner is that, "Longer lengths of stay also increase the risk of hospital-acquired infections." Again CIHI rejects the obvious solution recommended by hospital workers: reduce the risk of infections by maintaining high standards of hospital cleaning and other services instead of cutting hospital workers' jobs or contracting out to private for-profit service companies. For all levels of government and the rich minority they represent, cost cutting at patients' expense is clearly the order of the day regardless of poor outcomes for patients. This cost cutting leaves more funds in the government's hands for various schemes to pay the rich. But degrading public health care is itself an objective of the rich. Degrading the public system opens the way for the expansion of private for-profit enterprises in the health care sector. Resistance of Public Sector Workers Peel Region Special Needs Transit Workers Join Public Works and Social Service Staff on Picket Lines Members of CUPE Local 966 on strike. Eighty TransHelp employees walked off the job the evening of June 10 after talks with Peel Region broke down. They join 800 CUPE Local 966 members already on strike, including public works employees who have been out since June 4 and social services staff, since May 3. The Peel Region website provides the mission statement of the TransHelp service: “A Quality Regional Service: ‘Working together to enhance the lives of those unable to use conventional transit'.” However, the employer, Peel Region, is refusing to provide the workers who deliver this specialized service compensation on par with what others who do similar work in the surrounding regions receive. The Region is demanding that workers pay for any wage increase to achieve pay equity with others in their sector by making concessions in the benefits. Michel Revelin, Vice-President, CUPE Local 966 stated: "The strikes must end and the Region must give us what they have given other CUPE locals in the Region and given themselves. Non-union members and management have received a 2 per cent raise, with the ability to earn up to 7.5 per cent performance bonuses. Our members aren't eligible for performance increases, but we should be given what the other employees have received." The TransHelp workers are saying No! to concessions! No! to robbing Peter to pay Paul! Strikers Hit on Picket LinesTwo people were hit on the picket lines in the area of the Peel Region offices in Brampton on June 15 by drivers who refused to stop their vehicles and wait the legally-designated seven minutes to enter Regional property. The daughter of a bargaining team member from Ontario Works Human Services was taken to hospital by ambulance after being hit by a car reportedly driven by a former Brampton Mayor and Justice of the Peace. In the second incident, a man was hit by a vehicle driven by a Peel Region employee. He suffered minor injuries and did not require hospitalization. During the previous week, two Public Works' members were also hit when people refused to wait the seven-minute period. "This is absolutely unacceptable behaviour by people who should know better," said Mary Jo Falle, president of CUPE Local 966. "We are legally within our rights to hold people entering Region of Peel property for up to 15 minutes; we have agreed to a protocol with the Region to only hold entrants for seven minutes. Running down innocent citizens exercising their legal and democratic rights is appalling. We expect charges to be laid on these occasions." (CUPE Ontario) Striking Renfrew County Social Service Workers Oppose Austerity Measures May 31, 2012 support rally for striking CUPE Local 4989 members. Social workers who work for Ontario Works in the County of Renfrew, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4989, continue to resist austerity measures being imposed on them. Their employer, the County of Renfrew, requested a "no board" on the first day of negotiations, in order to impose working conditions or a lock-out. Negotiations broke off after four days on April 30 and the 22 workers have been on strike since May 10.
Renfrew County negotiators want concessions from the social workers on their benefits, such as their 100 per cent dental coverage and long- and short-term disability insurance. While the council voted itself a three per cent wage increase, they are offering the social workers no wage increase.
Austerity measures are being imposed by governments at all levels, attacking social programs and public services and the people who provide them. From the Harper government's sweeping changes to Employment Insurance to the McGuinty government's attempts to impose a freeze on Ontario Works benefits for people unable to work or unable to find work, these are attacks on the Canadian standard of living of all. The stand of the Refrew County social workers to oppose the austerity measures being demanded of them serves to unite the resistance and opposition to these attacks. (Photos: CUPE) Public Sector Workers, Anti-Poverty Group Denied Access to Council MeetingsOn June 14, three hundred and fifty striking Peel Region
workers, members of Canadian Union of Public
Employees
(CUPE) Local 966,
protested at Peel Region headquarters to oppose the decision of the
Peel
Region Council for refusing to let the union's president address the
Council. Mary Jo Falle, President of the CUPE Local 966, had signed up
as a delegate to speak on behalf of the
workers and was denied access to the council meeting. Daniel Cullen, executive director of the Hope Coalition, a local anti-poverty and anti-homeless group, was also denied the opportunity to address Council, despite appearing on the list of speakers on the agenda. Instead, he shared his message all those protesting outside, highlighting the important work done by the striking human services personnel. In related news, striking Renfrew County Ontario Works employees, represented by the CUPE Local 4989, were also denied the right to address their local council on May 30. The county's negotiating team is refusing to resolve the issues facing the workers. Denying citizens their democratic right to
present their
just demands to those elected to represent them is unacceptable in a
modern society and must be opposed. The public sector workers' demand
for a
fair
contract that addresses their concerns and defends the public services
they provide are part of the fight for the rights of all and must be
supported. Read Ontario Political Forum |
This past year teachers and
education workers in Ontario have taken
up preparing for the provincial government negotiations for new
collective agreements. Their organizations have examined the
commissioned reports for change in Ontario like the Drummond Report and
have extensively opposed recommendations
which would take Ontario down a path of cuts to much need educational
programs, job security and a disruption of livelihoods.
Provincial cuts to education
have placed many school
boards in a
deficit resulting in major destruction to the delivery of education as
is the case in the Peel and Toronto school boards where cuts not seen
since the Harris years are being debated and voted by trustees who fear
a provincial take-over. Such was
the case last week in Toronto for example where schools and classrooms
are threatened with less educational assistance, closed cafeterias, a
43 per cent increase in fees for use of schools, less support from
school office staff due to a new clerical employee formula, loss of
caretakers, school based safety monitors,
less high school teachers and vice-principals and an ongoing refusal to
resolve the funding formula started by the Harris government.
Many people are finding out,
however, that at times in
their lives
when they have high health care needs, the services they require are
not there. Workers reaching retirement age are experiencing this. At
just the time when their health needs are increasing, government is
severely rationing health care. They are
also finding that public services for frail or elderly parents are
completely unavailable and care has to be bought from private providers
and paid for from savings, selling family assets or going into debt.
The Ontario government is forcing hospitals to
severely
ration
services by underfunding them at a time of increasing demand for health
care. Doctors have been reporting that they are under a lot of pressure
to get patients out of hospital quickly, which they say often results
in infections and other complications.
Other medical professionals and hospital workers have been reporting
that as a result of job cuts and privatization of services, levels of
medically necessary hospital support services such as nursing care,
rehabilitative care, hospital cleaning and food services are reduced.
This degradation is taking place in an atmosphere
where hospital administrators are criminalizing patients as "bed
blockers" and pushing for their discharge into tightly rationed and
often inappropriate home care services.
These striking Renfrew
County workers cover a population of over 100,000 in 17 municipalities
and deliver social assistance to about
1,100 clients monthly. They provide assistance to the unemployed, the
impoverished, those fleeing domestic violence, people facing health
crises and many other trials. The
social workers report that the number of people in need is increasing
significantly monthly.