Workers have rights by virtue of being the producers of all goods and services society needs for its existence yet their rights are routinely denied, as they have no control over the economy of which they are the decisive aspect. This lack of control over the part of the socialized economy where they work and the economy as a whole means that the human-centred outlook of the working class and its rights are suppressed, as the economy both in its parts and whole is dominated by the capital-centred outlook of the owners of capital. The lack of control over the economy and denial of the rights of the working class, which is reflected in lack of control and denial of rights in politics and the mass media, is a problem that workers are taking up for solution and Ontario Political Forum seeks to give expression to their voice.

As in all aspects of modern life, individual workers can only be effective in defence of their rights at work and in the political and economic affairs of the province if they organize consciously with other individual workers in a human-centred way. Individual workers are virtually powerless against the power of monopoly capital and its capital-centred voice and control of the political and economic affairs of the province. Individual workers become effective and powerful in defence of their rights when united consciously with other workers in every workplace, community, educational institution, neighbourhood, seniors' home and most importantly in their own working class political party.

Ontario Political Forum is convinced that the voice of the working class will become the decisive factor in determining a new direction for the political, economic, cultural and social affairs of the province if only workers dare to do it. They have a world to win!

Owners of monopoly capital and their capital-centred voice are determined to block the voice of the working class from its rightful place at the centre of the political, economic, cultural and social affairs of the province. The task before the working class is to break through the block imposed by monopoly capital on the thinking, organization and voice of the working class, and bring human-centred social consciousness and politics into the centre of Ontario life.

Workers Must Prepare for Stepped-Up Attacks
on Public Sector Workers and Services

It is striking that on voting day, the monopoly media are setting a tone of threats and dire warnings to the Ontario electors that whichever Ontario government is elected tonight, it is going to have to step-up its attacks against public sector workers and public services under the hoax of deficit and debt reduction.

The ideological offensive that accompanies these threats has many themes. One of them is the assumption that public services and public sector unions are largely responsible for Ontario's ballooning deficit and debt. Another one suggests corruption on the part of governments for caving in to "union bosses" and "powerful public sector unions" in exchange for labour peace and votes that are ruining Ontario's public finances.

The impression is given that public sector workers are awash with public money and are bankrupting Ontario. There is not a word in this propaganda that proves any correlation between public sector workers' wages and working conditions with Ontario's deficit and debt. Even the data published by the Ontario Ministry of Labour on settlements of collective agreements show that the wage increases in the Ontario public sector have been of 1.5 per cent between January and July 2011, which is lower than the 1.9 per cent wage increases in the private sector. Increases of public sector wages in 2010 were 1.9 per cent and 2.5 per cent in 2009, well below average inflation for the period and this after a decade (the 1990s) in which public sector real wages decreased tremendously.

The situation is particularly difficult for the tens of thousands of public sector workers who are working in increasing numbers for agencies in health and education, such as long-term care and early childhood education, where the wages are low and the benefits poor. To demand that the wages and benefits of these workers be frozen is an affront and will only compound the economic crisis. It is also a convenient diversion from the real plundering of the public treasury that is being caused by the pay-the-rich economy in all its forms and by the fact that social production in Ontario, especially manufacturing, is shrinking. If workers are blocked from producing the wealth, where are the resources going to come from to rebuild the public treasury?

Noisy propaganda is also made associating public sector workers and their working conditions with "union bosses" and "powerful public sector unions." According to this correlation, improvements in wages and working conditions are not really what workers want and need. Unionized workers would allegedly agree to participate in the collective effort to reduce deficit and debt by slashing their wages and working conditions but they are prevented from doing it by trade union leaders who keep presenting irresponsible demands. The idea is presented that governments get corrupted by agreeing to the demands of the union bosses in exchange for labour peace and votes while union leaders get more union dues and other favours that they can use for political purposes.

The right of public sector workers to working conditions that are commensurate with the work they do, rather than being recognized and provided with a guarantee, becomes a matter of "blackmailing" governments to do things that are contrary to the public interest. The conclusion is drawn that "ordinary public sector unions" would be brought to toe the line of deficit and debt reduction and agree to the lowering of their living standards if their unions were crushed.

Also striking in this election is the silence over the work of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services that was established by the McGuinty government in its March 2011 budget. This commission has been given a blank cheque to re-organize a major part of the Ontario economy that employs more than 1.1 million workers with hardly a word about it mentioned during the election.

The March 2011 budget itself included $200 million in service cuts and the elimination of 1,500 civil service jobs (in addition to the 3,400 job cuts in the 2009 budget) that were called "shorter term initiatives." The Commission was mandated to look at the longer-term, at advising the government on fundamental reforms aiming at the elimination of the deficit.

The budget speech said, "Just because a government department is delivering a program or service today does not mean it should deliver that program or service in the future." The Commission, it said, would challenge "existing assumptions and traditional models." It also announced the appointment of former TD Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Don Drummond as Chair of the commission.

A report in the Globe and Mail the next day expressed glee about the opportunities "public sector reform" would open up for the rich, especially the opportunities for big scores through privatization:

"Ontario businesses got no new tax or spending goodies in the provincial budget tabled Tuesday, but the government opened the door to possible privatization opportunities that companies could take advantage of in the coming years. In a budget that promises to further reduce the size of the province's public service through thousands of job cuts, Ontario floated the idea that many of its services could be delivered by private entities. The provision of public services needs to be open to 'new forms of competition,' the budget said. To figure out exactly how to rejig the public service the McGuinty government has hired Don Drummond."

The Globe and Mail was quite pleased with the appointment of Drummond to supervise slashing public services and privatizing services. Drummond is one of those highly paid mercenaries who floats back and forth between senior levels of government and senior management of big monopolies offering advice on and coordinating the neoliberal offensive. Before going to TD Bank, Drummond was a Deputy to then Finance Minister Paul Martin. At that time Martin was carrying out his "deficit reduction" project by massive cuts to federal social programs and slashing tens of thousands of jobs from the federal civil service. More recently, Drummond's credentials include sitting down with Toronto Board of Trade CEO Carol Wilding to help create Rob Ford's election platform.

As Drummond so arrogantly stated in a recent media interview, whether Hudak or McGuinty wins the election, the anti-worker scheme demanded by the rich will be pushed forward by one of them:

"Somebody is going to have to do something, and it's going to have to be fairly forceful. Hopefully, it will be strategic and intelligent, and it will minimize any kind of pain -- and there likely will be some pain involved with it. On the day after the election somebody is going to be knocking on the Commission's door."

Clearly the table is being set for renewed attacks on public sector workers and public services under the hoax of deficit and debt reduction. Workers must respond by stepping up their own work in defence of workers' rights and to work out a pro-social solution to the economic crisis of which government deficits and debts are an integral part.

Workers and Their Allies Do Not Accept that
There Is No Alternative

The Ontario electorate has been put on notice that no matter who they vote for, no matter what the outcome of the election, the next Ontario government is going to have to cut more public services and provide more "incentives" to attract "investment." The message was delivered by David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada, in an interview published by the Globe and Mail. It initially appeared on September 6, one day before the election officially began but has been taken up anew last week, on the eve of the election, by the Globe and Mail, Windsor Star and others.

David Dodge is described by the monopoly media as the "sober voice of economic reason." This is a man whose career of "public service" includes overseeing the destruction of the former unemployment insurance system, which he characterized as an incentive to not work; championing the free-trade agreement with the U.S.; and his "biggest accomplishment" being his work in the 1990s with then Finance Minister Paul Martin of smashing the federal provincial transfer arrangements for health, education, public housing and other social programs across the country, in order to "pay down the deficit." That money has long disappeared while Canada remains saddled with a billowing debt!

Dodge is also a former Chair, and current member, of the Board of Governors of the CD Howe institute, a "think-tank" for the rich, that has such notables as former Ontario premier Mike Harris on its payroll, advising government on "public policy" in service of the rich. You decide whether David Dodge is a "sober voice of economic reason."

One thing is certain -- he is a prizefighter for the rich and their anti-social offensive. Another is that twenty-five years and more has amply proven that everything David Dodge has championed on behalf of the rich and their system to have Canada and Ontario "open for business" has failed miserably. The proof is in the pudding: the recurring crisis and harder times yet to come that Dodge says lie ahead.

With utter contempt for this truth and for democratic principles, the monopoly media have taken up the threats of David Dodge and the CD Howe Institute that regardless of the election outcome, Ontario will have to "tighten its belt." The Windsor Star wrote on September 24: "The most dismal thing about this election, apart from the dearth of talent, is that nobody running for office has the guts to remind Ontario residents that the glory days are long gone and we must face hard truths about our future." The Globe and Mail followed up on September 25 saying according to Dodge: "The new government will need to cut spending and that's not being telegraphed very hard" by "Ontario's three political leaders."

The rich and their prize-fighters take no responsibility that the crisis is the crisis of their system. The capitalist economic system and its obsolete relations of production are the root cause of this crisis and all its ugly features, from the wrecking of manufacturing,

to growing unemployment, the debt and deficit crisis and the gathering storm clouds of another recession. They see no alternative and have no solutions except more of the same anti-social, neoliberal offensive, because they are self-serving in the extreme.

There is an alternative. Another Ontario is possible. However, the working class and its allies will never be able to stop these crises and bring an alternative into being until they seize the day and organize themselves as an effective opposition and bring themselves to power so they can set a new direction for the economy and put the human factor/social consciousness smack in the middle of all economic, social and political considerations, where it rightly belongs.

Deepening Crisis of Manufacturing

In Welland, on September 30, after 80 years in the city, the Henniges Automotive Products Plant closed the doors on its 300 remaining workers. United Steelworkers Local 455 President Darren Cochrane said, "It's a dark day here, very dark. I think the local did everything it possibly could to try and stop this from 2006 on. We have a bunch of greedy corporations who want to make more money. The 12 per cent to 13 per cent return they were getting here wasn't enough. They want 20 per cent and 30 per cent."

The workers had thrown a "retirement party" at Club Richelieu the previous Sunday which was attended by over 1,000 veterans of the plant. The proceeds from the raffle draws went to Welland's HOPE Centre food bank. Said one worker, "All we can do is speak our piece and hope someone hears." Another asked that "politicians take their heads out of their butts and do something about this situation of the loss of manufacturing jobs."

Welland's Mayor Barry Sharpe complained that for many years every time the city attracts new business another major manufacturer closes. The only sizable plant left in the city is the old Stelco-Stelpipe plant now operating as Lakeside Steel. He said he believes the city can still pull together to get through these "challenging times."

This is but one example of the deepening crisis of manufacturing in Ontario. Official data usually refer to 2002-2003 as the start of the massive loss of manufacturing jobs. The Ontario Ministry of Finance released data when presenting its 2011 budget that shed some light on the scope of the crisis, based on figures provided by Statistics Canada, which gives figures on manufacturing as a whole rather than on all the industries that make the sector. Despite this, the figures reveal that manufacturing has shrunk both in absolute terms and in its relationship with the total employment in the province.

From 2000 to 2011, employment in Ontario's manufacturing sector shrank by 271,000 jobs. From 2003 to 2011 it has shrunk by 289,000 jobs. Manufacturing employment started to shrink annually in 2004 with a huge drop of 12 per cent between 2008 and 2009, from 901,000 to 797,000. It reached a new low in 2010 with 774,000 jobs left. Statistics Canada estimates that in 2011 the remaining manufacturing jobs in Ontario stood at 804,000.

Various experts have been quick to conclude that this means manufacturing jobs are coming back but there is no indication what these manufacturing jobs might be. It is not clear if these are the same jobs that were lost previously or other ones. All in all between 2000 and 2011, Ontario has shed 26 per cent of its manufacturing employment according to these figures.

Striking too is the steady shrinking of manufacturing in relationship with Ontario's total employment. In 2000, manufacturing represented 18.4 per cent of total employment in the province. In 2003, it fell to 17.5 per cent. In 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, manufacturing represented respectively 14.4 per cent, 13.5 per cent, 12.2 per cent, 11.6 per cent and 11.9 per cent of total employment in Ontario. Recent data (August 2011) put manufacturing at 804,000 jobs, total goods producing industries at 1,417,000 jobs and services producing industries at 5,327,000 jobs.

The Ministry of Finance data reveals that the output per industry between 2003 and 2010 has been negative (this means shrinking of production) in almost all the industries that make up the manufacturing sector: food processing, textile, wood and paper products, chemical and petroleum products, plastic and rubber, primary metal and metal products, machinery, electrical and electronics, and auto (both vehicles and parts).

This is a serious problem and it is not going to be solved by paying the rich in the form of tax cuts, public subsidies -- including so-called rewards for job creation and more generally by putting all the social assets at the disposal of the global monopolies in the hope that there is going to be a "trickle down effect." This has been done for a very long time and it has not sorted out the problem.

Sorting out the crisis of manufacturing means that manufacturing employment has to be defended and that manufacturing must be rebuilt in a way that contributes to nation-building. We need an economy that is pro-social and sovereign and engages in trade with others on the basis of mutual benefit. Manufacturing is an important part of nation-building. The starting point for the workers is to refuse to be marginalized when it comes to decision-making and setting the direction of the economy.

The Fight of Migrant Workers for Their Rights

More than 280,000 migrant workers are brought to Canada annually through a partnership between private sector monopolies and the government of Canada. According to the April 2011 issue of Focal, a newsletter prepared for the Canadian International Development Agency: "Canada's temporary foreign workforce has expanded significantly over the past 10 years. In 2010, 283,096 migrants of all skill levels were granted temporary work visas in industries across Canada. In the agricultural sector, there has been steady demand for migrant workers from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), whose numbers have tripled since 1999. Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) was initiated in 1966 through an agreement with Jamaica and has grown to include Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean States in response to employer demand to sustain agricultural production in Canada. It has grown from 264 workers in 1966 to 23,375 in 2010."

Almost 100,000 migrant workers come to Ontario to work in the agricultural sector, the building trades and in other sectors of the Ontario economy. They are an integral part of the Ontario working class and because of their precarious status, face the most brutal exploitation and work in conditions of virtual slavery. They are also used by the rich agricultural, building, tourism and other monopolies to exert downward pressure on the living and working conditions of all Ontario workers. Migrant workers face extremely bad working conditions; they are sometimes required to pay exorbitant recruitment and work-placement fees and the laws make it very difficult for them to organize to fight for their dignity and their right to safe working conditions, benefits, proper medical care and so on.

On April 29 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against migrant workers in Ontario when it overturned an Ontario court ruling and upheld the constitutionality of the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (AEPA), introduced in 2002 by the Eves Conservative government. The legislation blocks the right of agricultural workers to collective bargaining to achieve a modicum of dignity. The decision of the Supreme Court in favour of the McGuinty government's narrow interpretation of the law completely denies the alleged aim of the law, which is to provide the rights of the workers with a guarantee. Instead it reveals that the law is to provide the interests of the super-exploiters of migrant labour with a guarantee. So long as principles of fundamental justice are thrown out the window what is the use of legislating laws and having courts? They are supposed to uphold public right, not defend the rich and powerful. The Mike Harris government in 1995 amended the Labour Relations Act to exclude farm workers from joining a union. That legislation was ruled unconstitutional in 2001 by the Supreme Court of Canada. Nonetheless, today Ontario governments continue negating the right of the farm workers to have a say in the determination of their working conditions. The Supreme Court decision was an attack on the rights of all workers and a blow to the 20-year struggle by the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union (UFCW) and other collectives to achieve dignity and labour rights for the almost 80,000 domestic and migrant farm workers in Ontario. But their struggle continues because the unacceptable conditions continue.

The defence of the rights and dignity of migrant workers is an integral part of the fight of Ontario workers for the rights of all workers and their collectives for working and living conditions commensurate with the work they do.

The Necessity to Hold Government to Account for Trampling Rights of Migrant Farm Workers

- Jim Nugent -

Migrant farm workers participate in Labour Day 2011 in Toronto.

Migrant workers in Ontario's industrial farming system are a section of the Canadian working class whose rights as workers and as human beings have been brutally trampled by Ontario governments for over 60 years under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP).

Through arrangements between the governments of Ontario, Canada and the sending countries, workers are brought from Mexico, Jamaica and elsewhere to be exploited with impunity by large-scale horticultural agri-business owners. These workers produce more than half of the crops grown in Ontario's agricultural sector every year but are denied all civil rights in a way very similar to how slaves were excluded from civil society in the dark days of chattel slavery.

Migrant farm workers fall under the jurisdiction of provincial labour laws but Ontario governments have excluded them from basic labour standards. Employers of migrant farm workers were even exempt from health and safety regulations until 2006 when the migrant farm workers fought it out with the Ontario government in court to have farms included. In contempt of the court ruling, Ontario continues to allow farm employers to violate health and safety standards with impunity through a policy of not carrying out farm inspections. Even when workers are killed, nothing is done. On average, four migrant workers are killed every year in workplace accidents, but there has never been an inquest into any of these deaths.

While allowing employers to exploit and even kill workers with impunity, Ontario uses the full force of the state to prevent workers from organizing any resistance. Seasonal agricultural workers have been carrying out heroic struggles to organize into unions to have a say in their wages and working conditions, despite the threat of being sent home and blacklisted from working in Canada. Ontario refuses to recognize the migrant workers' union and to impose collective bargaining on the employers. The migrant workers' union won a Charter of Rights and Freedoms court challenge against Ontario with respect to freedom of association. Ontario persisted in denying workers' rights by re-jigging the Labour Relations Act to allow farm workers to "associate" but not to bargain collectively. To its shame, the Supreme Court allowed this ruse to stand.

The Ontario government tries to maintain its democratic and liberal face, while it arbitrarily excludes migrant workers from protection and suppresses their right to resist super-exploitation. It does this by perpetuating several myths.

The first myth is that labour relations, labour standards and collective bargaining shouldn't apply to agriculture because it will ruin "family farming." However, there is no such thing as "family farming" as such in Ontario anymore. There are two kinds of farms. There are highly capitalized and mechanized cash-crop/livestock owner-operated farms on large acreages. The other kind are large labour-intensive horticultural factory farms using migrant farm worker labour. Mushroom farms alone have 3.5 million square feet of space, some of it in former factory buildings. There are 126 million square feet under glass in hothouses growing vegetables and flowers. There are 20,000 acres of apple orchards. These are not "family farms"! Whatever family-run small farms do exist are totally marginal.

The second myth is that migrant farm workers are only "temporary" workers; they are not a part of the Canadian working class and people. In fact, migrant workers have been coming to Canada for 60 years and include many individuals who have been returning year after year. These workers have become the foundation of one of Ontario's important primary industries. Seventeen thousand migrants working on farms for wages make up 20 per cent of the total farm labour force and are responsible for almost all labour in the sector, producing $2.6 billion of Ontario's total $10 billion annual farm output. They are part of the Canadian working class, regardless of their immigration status.

A third myth is that providing these workers with temporary employment is mutually beneficial. It helps out Canadian farmers and it helps these workers to make allegedly superwages they could not otherwise make at home and it helps the people to gain access to Ontario producers. All of it shamelessly diverts from the role of governments in encouraging and sanctioning trafficking as a new form of slave labour.

In this Ontario election workers are taking measures to hold the politicians to account for trampling workers' rights and the human rights of migrant farm workers. They are striving to bring into being a regime which upholds that an injury to any worker is an injury to all workers, regardless of immigration status. We have to demand an end to the exclusion of workers brought to Canada under the migrant farm worker program and other indentured labour schemes from the labour standards regime. Farm workers must be included in all labour standards and health and safety regulations and the right to unionization and collective bargaining for farm workers must be upheld.

Successful Caravan Focuses Attention on
Plight of Migrant Farm Workers

Tower of Freedom Monument to the
Underground Railroad in Windsor

On October 2 in Toronto, Justicia for Migrant Workers concluded its 2011 Pilgrimage to Freedom Caravan across southwestern Ontario to bring attention to the working conditions migrant workers face. All along the way, the workers voiced their demands for the right to permanent residency and citizenship, an end to repatriations and deportations. They called for labour laws to be enacted and enforced which enable them to exercise the right to collective bargaining and equal access to social entitlements. The coercive role of recruiters and contractors was condemned along with other forms of state-sanctioned violence and abuse which cause death, permanent injury and illness for many migrant workers and, by extension, suffering for their families.

The Caravan deliberately linked the struggle of the migrant workers today with the historic struggle to end slavery and all forms of indentured labour. Key stops included historic sites of the Underground Railroad. The Caravan began on September 4 in St. Catharines and visited Virgil, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls. On September 25, the Caravan visited Windsor, Dresden and Chatham. The final leg of the Caravan visited Simcoe, St. Catharines, Brantford, Hamilton and Toronto on October 2.

Caravan members at Niagara falls.

On September 4, the Caravan began at the British Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Catharines where workers spoke about their working and living conditions and also learned about the struggles of Harriet Tubman, who lived in St. Catharines and made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves via the Underground Railroad. The Caravan then made stops in Virgil, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls to bring attention to the dismal living conditions of migrant workers who work in the vineyards of that region, while noting the disparity of those conditions with the mansions of the vineyard owners. In Niagara-on-the-Lake, caravan participants distributed flyers and the Ontario produce that they plant and harvest. Participants report that many people were interested to hear what they had to say. Also in Niagara Falls, the Caravan visited the Nathaniel Dett Memorial Chapel, an information resource centre for students, researchers and the community, with historical materials and genealogical research related to the Underground Railroad.

Justicia for Migrant Workers organizer Chris Ramsaroop addresses the Caravan at the Sandwich
First Baptist Church in Windsor.

The second leg of the Caravan began with at stop at the historic Sandwich First Baptist Church on Windsor's west side. The site was a key point in the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves entering Canada from the U.S. to find support. At the church, participants were welcomed by Pastor Colin Wisman Smith who explained the historical significance of the church and its congregation. He invited participants to explore the rooms under the floorboards used to hide runaway slaves from bounty hunters, and expressed solidarity with the struggle of the workers for their rights today.

Workers and their allies then got back on the bus bound for the town of Dresden, towards the National Historic Site known as "Uncle Tom's Cabin." They viewed exhibits that attested to the existence of slavery in Ontario and, among other things, learned about the contributions of the Reverend Josiah Henson, a former slave from Kentucky who became a prominent organizer of the Underground Railroad Network in southwestern Ontario and later, a founder of a school and surrounding community for other former slaves. After touring the grounds, the workers and their allies engaged in lively discussion about some of the parallels between the conditions today's migrant workers are forced to work under and historical conditions of indentured labour that are supposedly a thing of the past.

One worker told of how in his native Trinidad, the British used divide and rule tactics to try and pit different sections of workers against one another, one being the former African slaves and the other, workers brought in from India as indentured labour. He explained how today, in Canada, the same practice also takes place. He explained that at one workplace, Trinidadian workers were prodded by their employer to work faster because "the Mexicans are faster than you," while the Mexican workers at the same place were told the Trinidadians were all outpacing them. Eventually all the workers discovered what was going on and together staged a slowdown.

After a visit to the Heritage Room of the Black Historical Society of Chatham-Kent, this leg of the Caravan concluded with a vigil for all the migrant workers killed or injured over the years in the area. The vigil took place at a memorial near a large greenhouse operation outside of Kingsville, where some years ago a migrant worker was killed when struck by a car as he rode his bicycle home at night.

On October 2, the Caravan culminated with stops in Simcoe, Brantford, Hamilton and Toronto. During this final leg, participants visited a number of historic churches, including the Drake Memorial and Stewart Memorial Churches, whose congregations worked together to assist slaves who came to Canada from the United States. Reverends of the churches gave examples of the many ways the Black community secretly passed information hidden in songs and quilts to slaves in the U.S. on how to get to Canada. In Toronto the Caravan began at the Ontario Ministry of Labour and then marched to the federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney's regional office, to expose the role of both the Ontario and federal governments in violating migrant workers' rights. Ending the march, workers from Trinidad organized a spontaneous rhythm section keeping participants warm as they celebrated their efforts.

Throughout the Caravan, organizers spoke of their determination to continue the struggle shoulder to shoulder with migrant workers on the basis that this fight is everyone's fight, and that an injury to one is an injury to all.

Ontario Political Forum salutes the courageous stand of the migrant workers in defence of their rights and their demand to end their exploitation and modern-day slavery. All workers must stand as one with migrant workers and demand that the government do its duty to ensure that their rights are protected in law.

Toronto, October 2, 2011

Reverse the Unjust Dismissal of
Part-Time College Workers!

Ontario Political Forum, No.4 Sept. 29, on the struggle for a new direction for college education in Ontario and its analysis of the recent strike of the 8,000 support staff workers at Ontario's community colleges, breaks the silence the monopoly media has imposed on the voice of Ontario workers who are opposing the effects of the anti-social offensive on their lives.

Today there are part-time support staff and faculty at the community colleges whose demands for union rights are not realized; their votes for unionization have been locked up in ballot boxes and held hostage at the Ontario Labour Board for over two years with the government allowing the College Employer Council to block these rights. The striking support staff workers took the demand of union rights for the part-time workers to the bargaining table during their negotiations.

Days after the strike ended, it has been learned through word of mouth, some twenty part-time workers at various campuses have been fired for refusing to cross the picket lines. At the Georgian College Barrie Campus, there are local news reports of at least four part-time support staff workers being dismissed for refusing to cross the picket line. One dismissed worker, who has worked 24 hours a week with her contract renewed automatically every year for the past 5 years, decided to back her fellow workers as a point of moral conscience. She supported the workers' demands for the colleges to be run by full-time employees who have full benefits.

At Confederation College, two part-time support staff workers from Fort Frances and another from Thunder Bay whose contract was renewed for ten years continuously, were fired for taking principled stands supporting the strikers.

Arrogantly, a member of the College Employer Council stated that the workers abandoned their jobs. He said he respects their right to do what they did but they have to take responsibility for not respecting their contract. Therefore they are dismissed. We are to believe this is very reasonable. You break your contract, you take responsibility for it. But the spirit is not to solve the problems facing Ontario colleges, merely to criminalize resistance to the attempts by college administrators to impose untenable inhuman working conditions which reduce education to issues of money and an anti-human aim.

It is the College Employer Council which has abandoned any sense of social responsibility, not the fired workers who risked their jobs. The Employer Council has abandoned human-centred college labour relations by forcing part-time workers to renew contracts semester by semester, year by year and denying them union rights and wages and benefits equal to their full-time counterparts.

The College Employer Council is responsible for the havoc in the colleges this fall semester caused by its refusal to bargain in good faith.

The criminalization of the dismissed workers seeks to divert from the fact that the College Employer Council can be held to account only if the more than 5,000 part-time staff are included in the back-to-work protocol, which reads:

"...the parties undertake and agree that there will be no discrimination, intimidation, interference, restraint, coercion, recrimination, grievances or reprisal action of any kind whatsoever by either of them or their respective officers, representatives, agents or members in respect of any person in the employ of the college, whether covered by the collective agreement or not, because of such person's participation or non-participation in the strike, or his/her activity or lack of activity during the strike or his/her decision to work or not work during the strike and any employee contravening this paragraph shall be subject to discipline up to and including dismissal."

College workers -- full-time and part-time, support staff and faculty, everyone who wants to hold the employer responsible for working conditions -- must demand that these workers be re-instated immediately as a condition for going back to work. Do not allow the College Employer Council to divert from its own activities by saying, "We respect the right of part-timers to exercise their conscience but they broke their contacts, they have to pay for that." Let us not lose this opportunity to put pressure on the College Employer Council to cease these anti-worker, anti-human attacks and to honour the return to work protocol that they have signed.

The union principle, All for One and One for All, requires new arrangements where laws and contracts uphold a spirit which solves problems, not a spirit designed to criminalize conscience. The return to work protocol should ensure that no reprisal actions are taken against part-time workers.

Oppose the Criminalization of Part-Time College Workers Who Refused to Cross the Line!
Defend the Rights of All! All For One and One For All!
Reinstate the Unjustly Fired Part-time Workers Now!

What It Means to Think and Act in a New Way

What It Means to Think and Act in a New Way

Workers Must Prepare for Stepped-Up Attacks
on Public Sector Workers and Services

Workers and Their Allies Do Not Accept that
There Is No Alternative

Deepening Crisis of Manufacturing

The Fight of Migrant Workers for Their Rights

The Necessity to Hold Government to Account for Trampling Rights of Migrant Farm Workers

Successful Caravan Focuses Attention on
Plight of Migrant Farm Workers

Reverse the Unjust Dismissal of
Part-Time College Workers!

What It Means to Think and Act in a New Way

What It Means to Think and Act in a New Way

Workers Must Prepare for Stepped-Up Attacks on Public Sector Workers and Services

Workers and Their Allies Do Not Accept that There Is No Alternative

Deepening Crisis of Manufacturing

The Fight of Migrant Workers for Their Rights

The Necessity to Hold Government to Account for Trampling Rights of Migrant Farm Workers

Successful Caravan Focuses Attention on Plight of Migrant Farm Workers

Reverse the Unjust Dismissal of Part-Time College Workers!

Workers Must Prepare for Stepped-Up Attacks
on Public Sector Workers and Services

Workers and Their Allies Do Not Accept that
There Is No Alternative

Successful Caravan Focuses Attention on
Plight of Migrant Farm Workers

Reverse the Unjust Dismissal of
Part-Time College Workers!