Teachers and Education Workers Give Resounding No! to McGuinty's Attacks Against Them
and the Rights of All!

Some 20,000 teachers and education workers and their supporters from all over Ontario rallied at the Ontario Legislature on August 28 in a powerful demonstration of their opposition to the introduction of Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act, by the McGuinty Liberal government. The teachers and education workers were supported by delegates from teachers' organizations all over the country and by contingents of workers and their organizations from the public and private sectors. Bill 115 is draconian anti-worker legislation that strips teachers and education workers of their right to collective bargaining and right to strike and cuts teachers and support workers pay through a two-year freeze on wages, unpaid days and changes to wage grids. A rally for northern teachers and education workers was also organized in Thunder Bay.

The rally was opened by Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) President Sam Hammond who said that the demonstration was about defending democracy and democratic rights against the McGuinty government and its partner, the Tim Hudak Progressive Conservatives (PCs). He said that the demonstration was the beginning of the campaign against the legislation, not the end. Hammond pointed out all of the different teacher groups and education workers from many occupations participating in the action and said this represents a united stand of teachers and education workers against the legislation.

The ETFO president was accompanied on the stage by the presidents of teachers unions from Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and Manitoba as well as Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) President Warren (Smokey) Thomas.

Other keynote speakers for the teachers' and education workers' organizations were Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario President Fred Hahn and Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) President Ken Coran.

Fred Hahn spoke on behalf of 50,000 CUPE education support workers employed by school boards in a wide array of occupations. Hahn said the fight of teachers and support workers is the fight of everyone in the province. "They [McGuinty and Hudak] have the intention of taking away the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of workers in our province and we cannot allow them to do that. This is not just about CUPE; this is not just about ETFO. It is not just about OSSTF. It is not just about unionized workers. It is about every person in the province of Ontario."

Hahn denounced the way the McGuinty Liberals have created a crisis in education to serve their electoral interests and called on teachers and education workers to work for the defeat of the Liberals and PCs in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election. "This piece of legislation [Bill 115] that will strip the rights of thousands of workers is not about students. It's not even about money. It's about the cynical electoral politics of the Liberals which puts the electoral fortunes of the Liberals above the collective good. But it will not work in Kitchener-Waterloo. Nor will we reward the Tories for their attempt to drag down every other worker along with the public sector workers. We will work in K-W to elect Catherine Fife for the NDP."

The theme of OSSTF President Ken Coran's speech was that the government is committing an injustice against the people of the province with its unjust and unnecessary legislation and that stopping the bill is in the hands of teachers and education workers. Bill 115, he said," transfers our rights over to the Minister of Education... our power going to the government, that is an injustice." He also said, "Education workers all around the world for some reason take a leadership role [in opposing injustice]. They educate the public to defend their civil rights and liberties, to defend the basic principles by which we live. It is the education workers who will lead the public to understand the damage these folks are doing. It's all in your hands."

Coran urged all education workers to study the legislation being imposed by McGuinty and to discuss it to strengthen the conviction among themselves that the legislation is unjust and unnecessary. This, he said, will enable education workers to take appropriate measures to oppose the government. "So what we are going to do is this," said Coran. "It will be up to everyone here and to everyone who works in any educational facility to digest the material in that bill, to look at it, to understand it. I firmly believe that when they understand all the damage that bill does, they will take action into their own hands just as they did 12 years ago when another government was in power." Coran concluded his speech by leading the rally in chanting "Unjust! Unnecessary!"

Delegations from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) attended the rally to express the common interest workers from every sector and from across the country have in defeating the McGuinty-Hudak anti-worker Bill 115. The OFL delegation included President Sid Ryan, Secretary Treasurer Nancy Hutchison and Executive Vice President Irwin Nanda. The CLC was represented by Secretary-Treasurer Hassan Yussuf, Executive Vice President Marie Clarke Walker and CLC staff members.

Sid Ryan spoke for the OFL. After recognizing that there were workers attending the rally from many sectors represented by OFL affiliated unions, he denounced the McGuinty government's attack on teachers as an attack on all Ontario workers. Most of his comments were directed towards taking concrete political action against the McGuinty Liberals. He gave the example of the success teachers had in the past when they targeted a former PC Minister of Education Dave Johnson in his riding and defeated him.

Ryan urged teachers to take similar action in the upcoming Kitchener-Waterloo by-election, "That is why it is so important today when we see this solidarity and we see these numbers [at the rally] so we can show that the united labour movement is capable of pushing back and unelecting governments... the best thing you can do is to make absolutely certain that Dalton McGuinty does not use you politically to win a by-election, particularly in Kitchener-Waterloo."

The OFL president also denounced the alliance between the McGuinty Liberals and the Hudak PCs to attack the entire workers' movement, "McGuinty has jumped on the bandwagon with Tim Hudak which denigrates not just school teachers but he is also denigrating every worker in this province with his White Paper [PC White Paper on labour relations] and believe me what Hudak has in store for school teachers he also has in store for auto workers and steelworkers and CUPE members and OPSEU members."

Hassan Yussuf gave the address to the rally from the CLC. Yussuff denounced the Ontario government for trampling on workers' rights and pledged the support of the CLC to the struggle of teachers and education workers to restore their collective bargaining rights. The fight of teachers and education workers is everyone's fight, he said, because when employers see the government legislating workers the lesson they take is that it is okay to trample workers' rights.

The New Democratic Party was represented at the rally by nine MPPs from the Ontario NDP and MP Olivia Chow from the federal NDP. The Ontario NDP speaker was MPP Peter Tabuns. Tabuns took up the theme of the McGuinty government creating a confrontation with the teachers as partisan manipulation, "We have a Premier and Minister of Education who are far more interested in gaining seats in the legislature than they are in the students in the classrooms or than you and your families. The Premier had eight months to come to an agreement... but he ignored that opportunity. He decided, along with his new best friend Tim Hudak, to build this crisis and push through legislation." MP Olivia Chow said that in tabling the legislation against the teachers, the McGuinty government has taken a page from Stephen Harper who routinely uses legislation to take away workers' collective bargaining rights.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) also participated in the rally with a militant contingent. It has publicized the teachers' just cause widely through its newspaper Ontario Political Forum which is distributed throughout the province to workers in all sectors of the economy and people from all walks of life.

Throughout the rally several rank-and-file teachers and education workers gave powerful speeches which reflected the deep conviction among these workers about the unjustness of the attacks on them by the Liberal-PC anti-worker alliance. These presentations resonated strongly among the thousands of their co-workers attending the rally who cheered them on enthusiastically. These speakers included Tracy Newman, an education worker with CUPE; Penny Huteland, an education assistant with OSSTF; and teachers Cathleen Hansen and Susan Good who have organized a Facebook page that's very popular with teachers.

Tracy Newman denounced the crisis mongering of the McGuinty government about the start of the school year, pointing out that thousands of education worker have been working all summer and that many other education workers have already returned to work. She said, "This legislation is treating me and thousands of education workers with no dignity or respect... We are here today to stand up to unnecessary, unprecedented and iron fisted legislation. Bill 115 is intrusive, disrespectful and in my opinion nothing short of bullying. I encourage my MPP and every MPP to stand up and be part of the solution or else you are part of the problem." Penny Huteland denounced the Minister of Education and the media for hiding the fact that many low-paid education workers are also being attacked with wage freezes, days off and cuts through salary grid changes.

The rally closed on an extremely high note following the passionate defence of the professionalism and dedication of teachers and their value to society by Cathleen Hansen and Susan Good. They contrasted the way teachers put students first with the farce of the McGuinty government claiming to do the same. Hansen said McGuinty's version of putting kids first is "Here kids, you go first so I can hide my political agenda behind you." You cannot put kids first, she said, by putting their educators last. Good spoke boldly about the claim made by teachers and education workers being entirely just according to the work they do and the value they contribute to society. She denounced the injustice of denying these claims of teachers and education workers that have been recognized through negotiated collective agreements.