May 8, 2014 - Vol. 3 No. 26

Ontario Election Called for June 12

Parliamentary Politics Do Not Offer Workers a Choice or Alternative

Ontario Election Called for June 12
• Parliamentary Politics Do Not Offer Workers a Choice or Alternative
• Break the Back of the Ontario Austerity Fraud!

Working People Say No! to Austerity
• Queen's Park Rally Expresses Fighting Unity of Public Servants
• Transit Workers Oppose Privatization

Demand Justice for Injured Workers
• Join Weekly Pickets at Ministry of Labour
• Hold Government to Account for Attacks on Injured Workers! Scrap the Anti-Worker Benefits Policies! - Christine Nugent
• Opposition to Downloading Workers' Compensation to Municipalities

Ontario Election Called for June 12

Parliamentary Politics Do Not Offer Workers
a Choice or Alternative

The 41st Ontario general election officially began yesterday with the signing of the writ. Premier Kathleen Wynne requested Lieutenant Governor General David Onley dissolve the Legislature and call an election for June 12.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath previously announced that her party would vote against the Wynne government's May 1 budget. She said the Liberal government had lost the confidence of Ontarians and that Wynne could not be trusted to deliver what some have said is a "progressive" budget, tailored to the NDP. "The same government that couldn't fulfill three promises over the last year is making more than 70 new promises this year. How can Kathleen Wynne build a ship, when she hasn't managed to build a raft?" Horwath said.

The PCs did not support the budget either -- a position they have taken all along. According to PC Leader Tim Hudak, the budget does not indicate any ways to lower the debt.

Wynne said it would be better to hold an election than wait to see her minority Liberal government defeated in a confidence vote on the budget.

Each party began campaigning immediately.

Since the General Election in 2011 that ended with a minority government, the ruling circles have been unable to produce a champion that can get the working people to accept the need for the austerity agenda. The intervention of the working people in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election denied the Liberals a majority and the PCs any initiative or momentum. The opposition of the working people has led to the resignation of former Premier McGuinty and other high level Cabinet Ministers, including the Minister of Finance, and a deepening legitimacy crisis for austerity. Since the selection of Wynne as Premier by the Liberal Party, not the people, the crisis of legitimacy has deepened. The unfolding gas plant and other scandals have exposed the corruption and shown how the public purse is used to enrich private interests.

The decision to hold an election at this time clearly does not emanate from the necessity to resolve any pressing problems facing the people of Ontario. It is an attempt to resolve the contradictions between the parties and the private interests they serve about how best to deliver austerity and privatization. A majority government is coveted by the ruling circles so that the anti-social offensive can be imposed with impunity.

The working people are being told to line up behind the Liberals or the NDP, or a combination of both in what is being called strategic voting. On the one hand they are told that the budget is favourable to the working people and this means the Liberals should be supported; on the other hand, they are told that the NDP should be supported on the basis of delivering the promises which the Liberals' will not keep.

At the same time the ruling circles are introducing the notion that Ontario requires a majority government because under a minority government nothing will get done and the province is doomed.

When the workers discuss their experience they are clear that all the parties in the Legislature are completely outside of their control, even if they sit on riding association executives or are heavily involved in election campaigns. The private interests that have taken over the parties are the ones who decide. Whether it be stacking votes, manipulating membership lists or other methods of control, anything goes in the fight to take power.

The parties do not operate as primary political organizations through which the people can have a say about the direction of their society. They are marketing machines built and operated with the sole aim of winning power at any cost in order to favour a certain section of international finance capital which wants to use the state power to enrich itself and keep competitors at bay. During elections they use sophisticated databases and marketing techniques to manipulate the electorate in order to gain enough seats to win power. As a result, no public interest is upheld and anything which gets in the way of winning and serving those private interests is seen as a block to be destroyed; including public institutions such as school boards, local unions, electoral bodies, the judiciary and established legal frameworks such as the post second world war labour relations regime, health and safety regulations, compensation systems for injured workers, or the country itself in the form of borders and regulations, etc.

Meanwhile, in this election a real danger exists that the Hudak PCs, who unabashedly promote the anti-social austerity agenda and attacks on labour, will take advantage of the split in the labour movement between the Liberals and the NDP to get themselves elected.Ontario Political Forum calls on the working people of Ontario to make sure this does not happen.

Ontario Political Forum thinks that the best outcome in this election is to make sure no government gets a majority to do as they wish. Look at what is happening federally and in the provinces where governments have a majority. They are shamelessly imposing a vicious anti-social offensive and cannot be held to account. The workers will have to work out for themselves in each riding how to keep out the PCs and Liberals who have been championing the austerity agenda thus far, and express their views against austerity loud and clear.

Make sure the champions of austerity are not given a mandate! Hold the candidate you vote for to account! Austerity No! Monopoly Interests No! Public Right Yes! 

Break the Back of the Ontario Austerity Fraud!

How can a province of high productivity, abundant natural resources, a skilled workforce, advanced infrastructure, public services and social programs, and modern industrial and farming technology and means of production become beset with austerity? Did all the factors for producing wealth suddenly disappear? No they did not! Austerity is a concocted crisis generated from a neo-liberal political line to transfer wealth from the Ontario working people to owners of capital.

The ruling elite handed over billions to the parasites to save their skins during the 2008 crisis yet now wave deficits and debts in the face of the people, as if they agreed to pay the rich for their crimes of excess, their counterfeit schemes and reckless gambling.

The ruling elite in Ontario have bowed down to pressure from the monopolies and their powerful ownership groups to launch a campaign to steal what belongs to the working people by right. They are stealing our pensions to pay the rich; they are stealing our public services and assets through privatizations to pay the rich; they are destroying our social programs to pay the rich; they are stealing our wages and benefits to pay the rich; they are destroying our good jobs to pay the rich; they are stealing our money through individual taxes and user fees to pay the rich; they are stealing our natural resources to pay the rich.

The recent budget of the Liberals is considered "progressive." What does this mean? Will it open a path to progress? Of course not. Waving the phony banner of austerity to pay the rich, the Ontario ruling elite want to hand over $2.5-billion in grants to the monopolies in an absurdly named "Jobs and Prosperity Fund"; they want to give $29-billion to the construction, engineering and finance monopolies to build mass transit and other infrastructure. What a joke! The same monopolies and finance capitalists refuse to pay for the value generated from the infrastructure that already exists, value which they happily consume. Take for example, the value produced by mass transit workers which the monopolies and finance capitalists put in their fat coffers. These workers bring the monopolies' and finance capitalists' workers to work, their shoppers to shop and increase their real estate values a hundredfold, all without these elites having to lift a finger or pay one penny!

The rich parasites want to skin the ox twice on the backs of the workers who produce all the value. First without any shame at the corruption of using public funds to make private profits, they take billions out of public sector projects and then consume the value of those projects without paying for it in a fair exchange. The entire fraud of austerity is to fatten their wallets at the expense of the people and their needs, and at the expense of society and its general interests.

To consolidate their positions of class privilege in Ontario and their degenerate lifestyles, the rich parasites are screaming for the working class to work harder for less, to work longer for less, to work and work yet face insecurity in retirement and see their children saddled with student debts to the same parasites who scream austerity for the people and filthy opulence for themselves.

The fraud of austerity must not pass! The neo-liberal fiction of an Ontario working class that has suddenly lost its capacity to produce value must not pass! The rich parasites are simply out to steal what belongs to the people by right and that must not pass!

Don't let the rich parasites steal a penny more of what the workers produce! Reject with contempt the budget of the Wynne Liberals, as well as the proposals of the Hudak PCs or any other champions of austerity and retrogression.

Organize for a working class alternative and new direction for the economy!

Working class concessions are not solutions! Stop paying the rich! Increase investments in social programs and public services! Keep the rich parasites away from our public services and the people's assets!

Ontario belongs to the working people not the rich!

Working People Say No! to Auserity

Queen's Park Rally Expresses Fighting Unity
of Public Servants

On April 30, more than 1,200 members of four Ontario Public Service (OPS) unions held a militant joint rally at Queen's Park to express their fighting unity and resolve to defend their rights by standing together against the Ontario government's austerity agenda and to defend the public delivery of public services. The presidents of the Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO), the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU), the Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (PEGO) and the Association of Law Officers of the Crown (ALOC), who among them represent about 80 per cent of Ontario's government employees, pledged their unity and solidarity to support each other, starting with AMAPCEO's members who are now in negotiations with the Ontario government.

"Other public service unions realize that their members will be the next target if this employer gets away with the devastating cuts it is seeking from AMAPCEO. We know that solidarity works and we will not let them pick us off one at a time," said Gary Gannage, AMAPCEO President. Gannage noted that the unions are fighting for all workers in the public sector to have fair wages and working conditions, benefits and pensions that are not subject to cuts and claw backs.

Warren "Smokey" Thomas, President of OPSEU, stated that the Ontario government's demands for concessions from workers, such as reductions in their wages and benefits, are not going to pass, especially coming from the "social justice" Premier. He pointed out that members of AMAPCEO and OPSEU work side by side and that they will battle the Ontario government together. He noted that members of the OPS will lead by defending public services and standing united against the government's attacks on the workers.

PEGO President Ping Wu noted that, as engineers, PEGO members are involved in ensuring the health and safety of Ontarians. He stated that in the current contract that will end in December this year, PEGO employees gave up many concessions including their salary progressions. Reduced starting salaries and reduced short term sick benefits were accepted to get a settlement. This time around PEGO workers will not be willing to make those concessions, he said, adding that PEGO looks forward to working with the other unions to get a just settlement in terms of working and living conditions.

The President of ALOC, Sean Hanley, stated that his union represents all civil lawyers and articling students who work for the Ontario government. ALOC members help to enforce health and safety as well as environmental laws. He said that ALOC members have to work very long hours, often giving up weekends and family time to do their jobs. He noted that in the last round of negotiations, ALOC members agreed to a two-year freeze in wages and now the Ontario government is trying to claw back their retirements "without even trying to bargain the issue." He told the rally that the Ontario government is coming after health and other compensation benefits of ALOC members. Hanley called on the Ontario government to bargain in good faith and said that the unions will unite to fight against these cutbacks and demands for concessions. He demanded that the Ontario government show respect for the public service workers who serve the people of Ontario.

Following the speeches, the four union leaders signed a Unity Pact in the midst of enthusiastic applause from the rally participants.

Bottom left, left to right: ALOC President Sean Hanley; PEGO President Ping Wu, AMAPCEO President Gary Gannage
and OPSEU President Warren "Smokey" Thomas.

(Photos: TML, AMAPCEO, M. Lewycki)

Transit Workers Oppose Privatization

Toronto transit workers participate in April 9, 2011 Day of Action against cuts to and privatization of transit
and other public services.

The Toronto transit workers' union, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113, on April 23, pre-empted the election call and launched a public awareness campaign to make the Ontario Liberal government's plans to privatize all new public transit projects an election issue in Toronto. On May 2 the election was called for June 12 and wasting no time, the union aired their television ads that day on all Toronto stations. The ads call on the public to take a stand and demand that transit be funded and that transit improvements be publicly owned and operated.

Last year the union presented to the government on the need to heed the overwhelming experience from around the world that privatizing public transit is a bad deal for both riders and taxpayers. The union held meetings with Glen Murray, Minister of Transportation and Premier Kathleen Wynne. The union President, Bob Kinnear strongly contested the Ontario government's plan to build all new transit projects in the GTA as so-called public-private partnerships (P3s).

The union's April 22 news release announcing the launch of its "Stop P3 Campaign" says that Kinnear asked the Minister and Premier for evidence that there is a public benefit to privatizing transit. Kinnear pointed out that there is none and that privatization has failed everywhere. He told them that it is impossible for a private company to make a profit in public transit without huge government subsidies or high rates or reduced service, and usually all three.

According to the union's release, Murray and Wynne told Kinnear that the government is committed to P3s as a way of building infrastructure, whether it is hospitals, jails, highways or transit and public services such as health records and electricity generation. They said that by engaging their private sector partners they believed they would build badly needed infrastructure faster and with less strain on the public purse.

Kinnear said he told them this was exactly what privatizing politicians in Britain, Australia, Chile, Argentina and many other countries said before falling victim to corporate greed and incompetence, giving the example of the London Underground P3 that cost taxpayers over a billion dollars before the government took it back and the system in Melbourne, Australia where services were cut drastically after it was privatized and public subsidies "went through the roof." See more here.

The union gave the example in Canada of the P3 transit line in Vancouver -- the Canada Line -- which was built on budget only by cutting several planned stations and designing the line so that it could never be upgraded. Finally they presented the experience of York Region where Canada's only fully-privatized transit system, York Region Transit, charges the highest fares in the country and is taxpayer-subsidized at five times the public subsidy of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), while paying its workers 30 per cent less than they would earn as TTC employees.

In its May 1 budget, the Wynne Liberals disregarded any of the proposals presented by the transit union. The ruling elite proceeded with a budget for Ontario that set out to give $29 billion to the construction, engineering and finance monopolies to build mass transit and other infrastructure.

The ATU news release says the "Stop P3" campaign will consist of radio, television and print ads along with appearances by Local 113 President Bob Kinnear on media public affairs shows such as talk radio and television. Kinnear will also meet with citizen groups demanding transit improvements that are publicly owned and operated.

The union is confident that the deal to build the $3-billion Eglinton Crosstown LRT line as a P3 can be stopped if there is another minority government that is forced to re-examine the project. The Montreal-based engineering monopoly SNC-Lavalin is leading one of the two consortia bidding on financing, building and maintaining the line, according to a second ATU news release about its campaign issued on May 2. SNC-Lavalin made a big score when Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was privatized and sold to it by the Harper government at a fraction of its value.

ATU Local 113 says the fight to stop privatization of public transit is a key election issue and that the public awareness of the many hazards of transit privatization is crucial to a political solution.

(Sources: wemovetoronto.ca, http://truthabouttransit.com)

Demand Justice for Injured Workers!

Join Weekly Pickets at Ministry of Labour!

The Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG) has announced that it will be organizing pickets at the Ministry of Labour on May 9, 16 and 23 from noon until 1 pm, leading up to the mobilization of injured workers and their allies for June 1, Injured Workers' Day.

The aim of these pickets is to oppose the benefit cuts being pushed by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) through its Draft Benefits Policy Review. Several trade unions have also announced that they will be supporting the injured workers' pickets and opposing the WSIB benefit changes being proposed. United Food & Commercial Workers' Union, Canadian Union of Public Employees and Ontario Public Service Employees' Union have all said they will be joining the injured workers' pickets to demand immediate government action to stop changes at the WSIB which will cause further harm to injured workers.

Ontario Political Forum encourages everyone to demand justice for injured workers in this election and use every opportunity to smash the silence on the Liberals' and PCs' attempts to hand over the workers' compensation system to private interests on the basis of attacking injured workers and their right to a dignified life.

Hold Government to Account for Attacks on Injured Workers! Scrap the Anti-Worker Benefits Policies!

- Christine Nugent -

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) concluded consultations on its anti-worker Draft Benefits Policies on April 30. New and revised benefits policies were to be finalized by the WSIB and presented to the board of directors headed by Chair Elizabeth Witmer (who also led the Harris-era attack on injured workers). The WSIB timeline called for the policies to then be submitted to the Minister of Labour in June. This will now be delayed by the decision of the Wynne government to hold a general election on June 12. Injured workers, their organizations and their allies are using the election to make all politicians and candidates aware of and accountable for the damage the cuts are causing to the lives of injured workers and their families and to mobilize workers' opposition to the WSIB cuts.

Injured workers and their allies are holding the Ontario government directly responsible for the severe benefit cuts already being implemented by the WSIB under the signboard of a policy review. The WSIB is preparing new benefits policies designed by the accounting mercenaries at KPMG that will result in $13 billion in cuts to benefits received by workers injured on the job and by families whose loved ones are killed on the job.

Injured workers' groups point out that the WSIB has already been applying the proposed new benefits policies illegally for the past four years, resulting in great harm to injured workers. One of the most outrageous practices the WSIB has been illegally carrying out and wants to formalize concerns denying benefits for what the WSIB calls "pre-existing conditions." This means denying benefits to workers if they are older or were suffering from certain ailments when they were injured. This represents a bald-faced denial of the rights of all workers for just compensation if they are injured on the job.

The Draft Benefits Policy Review is the latest offensive of the WSIB on behalf of employers to dismantle Ontario's workers' compensation system -- an offensive supported openly by the Hudak Conservatives and stealthily by the Liberals. This offensive is guided by the neo-liberal outlook that says employers will move their factories and other businesses out of Ontario if they are forced to pay just compensation for workplace injuries and deaths. The WSIB and successive Conservative and Liberal governments let employers off the hook with low WSIB premiums and then implemented waves of benefit cuts in the name of reducing an alleged "unfunded liability." Currently the WSIB claims to have an unfunded liability of between $10 billion and $13 billion, depending which particular bookkeeping fraud is used to do the calculations.

Injured workers and other working people are digging in to oppose the latest WSIB/employer offensive against the most vulnerable workers. They reject the neo-liberal assumption that employers should be able to cause workplace injuries and deaths with impunity as part of establishing a "low cost" environment for attracting investment to Ontario. Furthermore, they see the entire campaign about the WSIB's "unfunded liability" as a deceptive manoeuvre to push benefit cuts. Any under-funding of future WSIB obligations will not be caused by benefit levels being too high and shouldn't be sorted out on the backs of injured workers. Any WSIB deficits are the result of the slashing of employer premiums by the Harris Conservatives which the Liberals continued. The importance of the alleged under-funding is also greatly exaggerated since the WSIB obligations for future benefits is funded at about the same level as the Canada Pension Plan which is said to be in great shape.

In this election, demand that the anti-worker benefits policies be scrapped and injured workers' rights be affirmed!

Opposition to Downloading Workers' Compensation
to Municipalities

One of the outcomes of increasing cuts to benefits for injured workers is the growing number of injured workers who cannot work and are forced to seek benefits from Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). Injured workers' groups are making presentations to municipal councils, calling on them to examine how WSIB benefit cuts will result in the downloading of benefit costs for disabled workers from employers to the municipalities. Municipalities will end up being impacted by increased applications for OW and ODSP, housing supports and food banks. Municipalities were not consulted about the changes to the WSIB benefits policies.

The Niagara and District Injured Workers Group made a presentation to the Niagara Regional Council to expose the downloading of employer responsibility for injured workers onto the municipalities. In response to the injured workers' presentation, Niagara Regional Council has sent a letter to WSIB Chair Elizabeth Witmer, the Minister of Labour and Niagara MPPs demanding an extension of the April 30 Draft Benefits Policies consultation deadline. Council said it needs time to study the impacts of the benefit policy changes. This disregard for the municipalities and the challenges they will face exposes the WSIB and government initiatives on injured worker compensation as anti-social wrecking activity.

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