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February 16, 2017
Nova Scotia Government
Introduces
Legislation to Impose Contract on Teachers
Stand with Nova Scotia Teachers in
Defence of Their Rights and
Quality Public Education for All!
- Mira Katz -
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Halifax
Rally
Oppose
Anti-Worker
Legislation
Against Teachers
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Nova
Scotia
Government
Introduces
Legislation
to
Impose Contract on Teachers
• Stand with Nova Scotia Teachers in Defence of
Their Rights and Quality Public Education for All! - Mira Katz
• McNeil Government's Anti-Education
Legislation Results in Province-Wide Teacher Strike - Nova
Scotia Teachers Union
Ontario Court of
Appeal Denies Benefits to Stelco Retirees
• Vindictive Abuse of Canada's Seniors
• Denying Worker Pensions and Retiree Benefits
Is Criminal - K.C. Adams
• Workers Are the Essential Human Factor in the
Economy - Rolf Gerstenberger
• Excerpts from Ontario Court of Appeal Order
Denying Benefits to Stelco Retirees
Manitoba Government
Austerity and Privatization Agenda
• Oppose Use of Legislature to Attack Public
Sector Workers! - Peggy Morton
Quebec Paramedics on
Strike
• An Important Fight Against Downward Pressure
on the Conditions
of All - Pierre Chénier
Nova Scotia Government Introduces
Legislation to Impose Contract on Teachers
Stand with Nova Scotia Teachers in Defence of
Their
Rights and Quality Public Education for All!
- Mira Katz -
Nova Scotia teachers rally against passage of anti-worker legislation
outside the provincial legislature, Halifax, February 14, 2017.
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil and his Liberal
government have introduced legislation to impose a contract on Nova
Scotia's 9,300 public school teachers. Members of the
Nova Scotia Teachers Union in three successive votes declared a
decisive majority No! to the previous government contracts and have now
called a one-day strike on Friday February 17.
Teachers have said with authority that the government side refuses to
deal properly with the substantive issues of income for the teachers,
their working conditions and the learning
conditions of the students. Teachers point out that working and
learning conditions in public schools in Nova Scotia have been
deteriorating under successive anti-social austerity budgets
and regimes. This anti-social austerity and attacks on public education
must stop! has been a battle cry of the teachers and their thousands of
supporters amongst the students and concerned
Nova Scotians.
Modern society depends greatly on an educated populace.
Quality education for all can only be achieved when that is the aim of
the education system and those in control. The aim of
the Nova Scotia Liberal government is to attack public education and
impose austerity on it through use of police powers masquerading as
legislation. A government disgraces itself and
loses all legitimacy when it sets itself up as a police power dictating
relations within the economy and dictating how public education should
be run in contradiction with those directly
involved -- the teachers, students, other education workers and parents.
  
McNeil and his Liberal government declare they know
what is best for students and public education and will impose their
dictate on the teachers and society. But the aim of McNeil is
not to improve public education and provide a quality working and
learning environment for teachers and students. The Liberal
government's declared aim is austerity reflected in a callous
disregard for the working and learning conditions in Nova Scotia's
public schools and the rights of teachers to a say on their terms of
employment.
 Teachers and their students
know best the conditions
within their working and learning environment. Their views should be
respected and aired publicly, thoroughly debated and
assessed by all. Public opinion should be created and mobilized behind
the aim to improve public education and develop the best working and
learning conditions for all teachers and
students without exception.
Using the legislature to suppress the mobilization of
public opinion in favour of quality public education for all and impose
a government dictate is extremely regressive and proves the
Liberal government is unfit to govern. Imposing a self-serving dictate
on an important section of the working people is wrong and should never
happen. It negates teachers' right to a say on
their working conditions and to decide on those working conditions
through extensive discussion, deliberation and vote. It negates
students' right to participate in having a say on their
learning conditions and deciding on those learning conditions in
cooperation with their teachers.
Workers' Forum calls on the working people
throughout the country to condemn the Nova Scotia Liberal government's
use of the Legislature to suppress the rights of teachers
and students and to attack public education and the modern right to
quality education for all. This must not pass!
For background information on the resistance of
teachers in Nova Scotia and BC see Workers' Forum,
February 9, 2017 and Workers'
Forum,
December 8, 2016.
McNeil Government's Anti-Education Legislation Results
in Province-Wide Teacher Strike
- Nova Scotia Teachers Union -
Teachers rally at the legislature, February 15, 2017.
The complete lack of respect displayed by Stephen
McNeil and his government towards teachers, students and their families
has left NTSU members with no choice but to initiate a
one-day province-wide walk-out on Friday, February 17.
 "In the entire 122 year
history of the NTSU, our
members have never faced a more anti-education Premier than Stephen
McNeil," says NTSU President Liette Doucet. "The legislation
he introduced yesterday limits teachers' right to strike, erodes their
ability to negotiate a fair contract and prevents them from advocating
for reforms to improve learning conditions for their
students. The result is the first province-wide teacher strike ever in
Nova Scotia."
Teachers will use the day to ensure government MLAs
know the full impact of the McNeil government's actions on Nova
Scotia's public education system and public sector workers in
the province.
"We believe this legislation is unconstitutional and we
owe it to our colleagues past, present and future to take this stand.
Stephen McNeil says he wants to hear from teachers, so on
Friday teachers will spend the day ensuring the Premier and his Liberal
caucus gets the message -- his government's bully tactics can no longer
be tolerated."
Ontario Court of Appeal Denies Benefits
to Stelco Retirees
Vindictive Abuse of Canada's Seniors
Stand together in defence of rights
as one working
class, young and old
 Three judges of the Court
of Appeal for Ontario have
denied a motion to reinstate the health benefits (OPEBs) of retired
Stelco steelworkers and salaried employees. Union lawyers
argued in court that the original official reason to deprive retirees
of their OPEBs, a crisis of company liquidity, was no longer valid. For
the past year the company has had roughly $200
million in cash on hand, while the OPEBs require only $2 to $3 million
per month.
To continue to deprive retirees of what is theirs by
right when even the original bogus reason no longer exists reflects
something sinister behind this decision. It appears to many that
this vindictive dictate is designed to humiliate retirees and trample
on their dignity as long-serving steelworkers producing value for the
economy and society but no longer capable because
of old age. The court ruling declares "who is boss," and the boss has a
divine right to trample on your rights with impunity so don't even
think of resisting because the boss and court
jointly hold state power and you workers, young and old, have no power.
The original unjust ruling and its further approval
create an atmosphere where the company and state have police powers to
deprive retirees and workers of their rights with impunity and no
government of laws or any legal arrangement can stop them or hold them
to account. It says to seniors that the arrangement founded in law that
the company and state made with you in exchange for your capacity to
work during your working lives, where certain living conditions are
guaranteed until passing away, is unilaterally cancelled. The court
ruling imposes a dictate of police powers. It demonstrates loud and
clear that the oligarchs and their hirelings in the federal and
provincial governments are dictators beyond the touch of any government
of laws, who can act with impunity to deprive workers of their rights.
 The working class, young and
old, stands as one against
this state of police powers acting with impunity to deprive workers of
their rights. Workers demand a government of laws
where rights are recognized, respected and guaranteed, within which the
people can hold the government to account for any breach of its
responsibilities and legal arrangements.
Denounce this vindictive attack on the rights of Stelco
retirees!
Reinstate the OPEBs now!
Stand as one working class, young and old, to resist
all attacks on rights and fight for the new!
Workers demand a democracy where their rights are
guaranteed and they can hold the rulers to account if those rights are
denied.
Denying Worker Pensions and
Retiree Benefits Is Criminal
- K.C. Adams -
Young and old workers stand together
in defence of
rights
 The oligarchs in control of
Stelco and the Canadian
steel sector together with the state have terminated the
post-employment health benefits (OPEBs) of steelworkers and salaried
employees. They have also stopped putting any new value steelworkers
produce into the Stelco pension plans and want to eliminate
defined-benefit pensions and OPEBs for all new and
current workers not enrolled. The oligarchs are planning to make this
attack on workers' rights permanent while under the police powers of
the Companies' Creditors Arrangement
Act (CCAA). They are conspiring to include the attack within an
agreement to sell Stelco to a group of U.S. oligarchs calling
themselves Bedrock, and within new collective
agreements forced on active steelworkers at both the Hamilton and Lake
Erie mills while still under CCAA.
The Bedrock CCAA plan of purchase and proposed new
collective agreements entail permanently separating the pension plans
and OPEBs from Stelco itself and any new value
steelworkers produce. This will make retiree benefits vulnerable to
reduction and effectively deny defined-benefit pensions and OPEBs to
employees
not yet enrolled. In accounting, this is called
taking the pensions and OPEBs off the balance sheet.
 The attack on retired Stelco
steelworkers and salaried
employees and the denial of defined-pensions generally for Canadian
workers is a negation of what belongs to workers by right in
exchange for their capacity to work. Young and old workers are being
told and taught through this denial the false consciousness that the
sale of their capacity to work is not an exchange
for lifetime guarantees with those who buy their capacity to work and
their state.
The oligarchs are forcing workers to accept the
injustice that the sale of their capacity to work is an hourly, daily
or weekly exchange that ends whenever workers no longer can work
for whatever reason and without any state guarantees of a livelihood.
This false consciousness says if workers' capacity to work is
interrupted through injury, illness, unemployment or
retirement then no arrangement or legal guarantees exist to defend
their rights to a Canadian-standard livelihood. Workers are told that
any arrangements can be overruled through
exceptional circumstances and state police powers such as the CCAA.
In the Stelco case and generally, the oligarchs in
power are declaring the arrangements and legal guarantees for a
lifetime livelihood in exchange for workers' capacity to work do not
exist. Workers, especially younger workers, are told they are on their
own to fend for themselves without a direct connection with the
socialized economy when unemployed and without
any guarantees that current workers' production of new value will be
available to sustain them under all circumstances until passing away.
Down with the Criminal Attack on
Workers' Pensions and Retiree
Benefits!
Stand Together as One Working Class in Defence of Rights!
Workers Are the Essential Human Factor
in the Economy
- Rolf Gerstenberger -
The oligarchs and their state use as a weapon in the
class struggle the false consciousness of workers as things and a cost
to their enterprises and the economy. This false
consciousness declares that workers through their work-time do not
reproduce the value of their capacity to work or produce the profit the
oligarchs covet.
 This false consciousness
divides workers into
categories of things such as their age, their conscience, the price of
their capacity to work, their national origin, the colour of their
skin,
their religion, their health etc. Rather than workers having a social
consciousness of themselves as one social class and essential human
factor in the economy producing the entire value on
which the economy and society depend for their existence, they are
force-fed a false consciousness of themselves as a cost to the economy
and as things that can be divided in contradiction
with their reality as one social class, the actual producers in modern
society. This is meant to weaken workers' resistance in opposition to
attacks on their rights and block them from
organizing and bringing into being a new direction for the economy and
the country's politics and governance.
When workers stand together as one class upholding
their social consciousness as the essential human factor in the
production of all value, and militantly defend their rights and build
their independent organizations, institutions and media, they can
perform miracles and deprive the oligarchs and their state of the power
to deprive the working class of its rights.
Young workers soon become old workers as time marches
on. Healthy and uninjured workers can become ill or injured.
Spontaneously, young workers discover they are older and near
retirement or unable to work for whatever reason and deprived of a
Canadian-standard income. This fact of a working life inevitably
interrupted should never be forgotten by any worker. It
must become part of the social consciousness of the working class that
young and old, healthy and unhealthy are one class united in defence of
their rights. Workers are committed as one
social class to reproduce themselves as the essential human factor in
the economy, to produce the added-value on which society depends, and
to defend the right of all members of their
class to a Canadian-standard living from birth to passing away in
exchange for their capacity to work.
Those who purchase workers' capacity to work and their
state under the current system of private ownership and control of the
basic sectors do everything to sever the relationship
between active workers and retirees at specific workplaces such as
Stelco and nationally. They do not want a social consciousness
developing that the exchange of a worker's capacity to
work and its potential to develop from birth is a lifetime arrangement
that must guarantee the rights and well-being of all members of the
working class under all circumstances without
exception.
The scheme of the oligarchs in control of Stelco,
Bedrock and the Ontario government to divide young and old Stelco
workers with differing prices in exchange for their capacity to
work, and to sever pensions and OPEBs from the new value workers
produce should be considered a criminal act and denounced as such by
all Canadians. Those in government must be
held to account for this criminal act. This pitting of young workers
against old workers to split the working class is a retrogressive
direction for the country both in this circumstance at
Stelco and generally in all workplaces when dealing with wages,
pensions and benefits.
To incorporate the retrogression of taking pensions and
OPEBs off the balance sheet within a sales agreement with the Bedrock
oligarchs and within retrogressive collective agreements
forced upon current steelworkers and retirees under the police powers
of the CCAA is criminal. The oligarchs in control of Stelco, Bedrock
and the province think they can deprive workers
of their rights with impunity because they are drunk with the police
powers of the state within a decaying political system crying out for
democratic renewal.
A working class organized, united and determined to
defend its rights and the rights of all is duty-bound to hold those who
purchase their capacity to work and the state to agreements
that guarantee Canadian-standard livelihoods for life. Defined-benefit
pensions and health coverage must become universal for all workers as a
right guaranteed by a government of laws. A
working class organized and united as the essential human factor in
production of the value the oligarchs covet and which society needs for
its survival, through actions with analysis to
mobilize the entire working class, young and old, can deprive the
oligarchs of the power to deprive them of their rights both in specific
instances such as at Stelco and in general.
Workers are one working class, young and old,
determined to defend their rights!
Excerpts from Ontario Court of Appeal Order
Denying
Benefits to Stelco Retirees
"These motions for leave to appeal arise in the context
of the ongoing proceedings under the Companies' Creditors
Arrangement Act involving U.S. Steel Canada Inc.
("USSC")."
"In 2015, an order was made suspending the payment of
certain benefits, referred to as "OPEBs" (other post-employment
benefits, for example, prescription, dental and vision benefits)
to retirees. The USW, together with its local unions and representative
counsel to the non-USW active and retired members, jointly brought a
motion. They sought to have the payment of
OPEBs reinstated on the basis that USSC's financial position had
improved since the 2015 order was made."
"The CCAA judge dismissed the motion on the condition
that USSC make a one-time payment of $2.7 million towards the benefits.
The moving parties now seek leave to appeal from
that decision."
"It is rare that this court will interfere with a
discretionary decision of a CCAA judge."
"Leave to appeal is denied."
Manitoba Government Austerity and
Privatization Agenda
Oppose Use of Legislature to Attack
Public Sector
Workers!
- Peggy Morton -
 Premier Brian Pallister's
Conservative government in
Manitoba is using shock and awe tactics to launch a broad attack on
public services and the workers who provide them. On
January 5, the Minister of Finance and officials invited Manitoba's
public sector unions to participate in what was referred to as a Fiscal
Working Group. The Group was to meet February
10 to discuss the province's fiscal situation. One day before the
meeting, the Manitoba Federation of Labour was informed in an email
that the discussion would no longer be about options
to improve the government's fiscal situation, but would instead focus
on the government's legislative intentions. The letter threatens the
workers and their unions, stating, "As you are
aware, the government has stated publicly that 'everything is on the
table' with respect to possible legislation."
The "everything" on the table includes:
- "Whether the legislation should cover the entire
public sector or only select parts;
- "Which components of compensation
should be included;
- "Potential reopening of collective
agreements;
- "Extension of some collective agreements, likely those
with wage freezes in place;
- "Mandated wage settlements on a
go-forward basis;
- "Merit increases;
- "Pensions;
-
"Reduced work weeks;
- "Possible off sets such as efficiencies"
Just days before this letter was sent, the crown
corporation Manitoba Hydro announced brutal reductions to its
workforce, saying they will eliminate 900 jobs in 2017.
With these threats the Pallister government has
declared no interest in conducting good faith bargaining and is not
serious about a "dialogue" with the unions.
After the February 10 meeting, at which no cabinet
minister or MLA was present, the government issued a statement
attacking the union for speaking publicly about the government's
actions.
"The integrity of this ongoing process requires direct
and frank dialogue so neither the Premier nor the Minister of Finance
will be drawn into premature speculation about potential
outcomes," the statement said.
"Our government respectfully urges our partners in
labour to follow the same course by focusing on the opportunity for
actual discussion and cooperation rather than seeking charged
and mischaracterized public conflict."
The Pallister government is well aware that the courts
have ruled that governments cannot simply tear up collective
agreements. Does it intend to do so anyway and draw the unions
into a long legal battle? It may claim that the phoney dialogue/meeting
at which no cabinet minister attended constitutes "consultation" with
the unions within a narrow interpretation of the
law.
The government has already indicated it is marching
down the route of "public-private partnerships" (P3s) and favours
privatization of public services. These
methods are used to tear up collective agreements and wreck
workers' organizations. Whatever the case, clearly the Pallister
government is not interested in solving any problems facing society,
and the self-serving use of the fiscal situation is a
pretext for broad attacks on public services and the workers who
deliver them.
 To launch attacks on the
workers who work tirelessly to
protect the people in face of floods, blizzards and ice storms, care
for the sick and elderly, educate our children and provide all
the public services and programs on which society depends is a crime.
The state-organized crime is not just against the workers who provide
the services, but against society, because the
public sector workers are the front line of defence of the services on
which the people and society depend.
In an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, a Pallister
government spokesperson said:
"Our government inherited serious financial challenges
and unsustainable expenditure growth. As we address these issues and
consider options including legislation, we have reached
out to union leadership to secure views and constructive feedback.
"This is occurring through a respectful and ongoing
process being co-ordinated through public service officials and union
leaders. Government is not going to bypass this direct
dialogue through premature public comments about potential outcomes."
What exactly is the government proposing to discuss?
According to the government, "dialogue" consists of the government
imposing the agenda, which is how the assault on the
workers will take place and the unions are invited to make suggestions
in this regard. This is unacceptable to say the least. Health care
workers do not ask which patient should I look after
and which should I abandon. Teachers do not ask which students are
expendable or un-teachable. Firefighters do not enter a burning house
coldly calculating which of the people inside they
will try to save and who will be left to die. Workers make every effort
to treat, teach and save everyone! That is their job and they are proud
to do it as it presents itself.
The Pallister wrecking agenda puffed up with spurious
claims of "unsustainable expenditure growth" and other empty chatter is
alien to the working class. The Pallister agenda is to
serve the financial oligarchy and not the people but he wants to hide
his true aim behind a concocted "fiscal situation" to fool the
gullible. The agenda is not to solve problems of
nation-building but to suck society dry of all its assets and values
for the benefit of the global oligopolies and class privilege of the
rich.
Quebec Paramedics on Strike
An Important Fight Against Downward Pressure
on the
Conditions of All
- Pierre Chénier -
Paramedics and other health care workers demonstrate in Quebec City,
October 27, 2016.
Paramedics struggle to improve their
conditions and
oppose the government's irresponsible actions
Close to 1,000 paramedics, members of the Brotherhood
of
Pre-hospital Workers of Quebec (FTQ) went on strike February 2 in many
cities in Quebec. Three days later, some 960
paramedics members of the Federation of Health and Social Services
(FSSS-CSN) employed by Urgences-Santé in Montreal and Laval
joined the strike. The FSSS has about 3,600 workers in the pre-hospital
sector and strike actions have been held recently in Quebec City and
Sherbrooke, and more are expected to be held in Quebec North Shore and
Lower Saint-Lawrence.
Quebec paramedics have been without a contract since
March 31, 2015. They are demanding significant improvements in their
working conditions, which have deteriorated over the
years. The working conditions are also those of the delivery of
services so vital to the health of the population.
They seek a reduction in their workload, which has
become quite impossible to manage with the number of calls and the
increased intervention time while the number of staff and
vehicles has not kept up. Because of the deteriorating conditions,
people who require paramedics have suffered cardiac arrest and other
serious issues while waiting longer than they should
for an ambulance to pick them up. In this context, psychological
exhaustion has become common among paramedics.
Workers are calling for the abolition of on-call
schedules in the regions, where paramedics are on duty seven days in a
row for 24 hours a day followed by seven days off. These
schedules, besides destabilizing the lives of the workers, mean that
the waiting time following a call is greater as the workers first have
to leave their homes to pick up an ambulance.
Paramedics are demanding wage increases that bring them
on par with those of the public sector and improvements to their
pension plans. Due to the particularly challenging conditions
in which they work, many ambulance attendants have to retire earlier
than workers in other occupations and request arrangements to do so
without penalty.
The demands of the paramedics are just and consistent
with the important work they do for the people and the value they bring
to society. Their demands are aimed at halting the
deterioration of services under the anti-social offensive of successive
governments.
After two years without a contract, normative aspects
are largely settled but the monetary clauses are going nowhere. The
employers, be it Urgences-Santé, which is a
state-organized-enterprise, or the Corporation des services d'ambulance
du Québec (CSAQ) representing the vast majority of private,
not-for-profit and cooperative ambulance companies
outside Montreal and Laval, all claim they do not have a mandate to
negotiate monetary issues. The stated reason is the government's
refusal to uphold its responsibility. Health Minister
Gaétan Barrette of the Couillard government expressed this
himself in a particularly cynical way in April 2016. He announced his
Ministry was withdrawing from the bargaining table,
except with regards to negotiation of the pension plan. Barrette
blustered about an overhaul of service contracts that the government
has with various employers, a redesign to consider them
subcontractors, which would negotiate independently with the workers.
In this way the government wants to weaken the united stand of
paramedics and make them deal with all the
different subcontractors who are all state sanctioned and financed
enterprises. The government knows full-well the integrated nature of
pre-hospital services and the overriding responsibility
of the state, which is responsible for funding all paramedic companies,
but is putting on this act to attack ambulance service workers.
The workers find themselves in the absurd situation
where their employers say they do not have a mandate to negotiate and
the government says it is up to the different subcontractors
to negotiate. The service contracts expire on April 1, 2017 and the
employers' bodies are saying the amount the government is allocating to
them is being drastically reduced. For this
reason they say they cannot make any wage offers for the last three
years of a five-year agreement. Within this anti-social atmosphere,
ambulance workers are told wage increases will only
occur if they give monetary concessions on other aspects of the
contract, such as holidays and vacation time.
 Minister Barrette's dictate
to divide the sector into
contracting companies is meant to drive down the wages and working
conditions of paramedics, both urban and remote, and
dismantle the uniform terms of employment workers had achieved in
earlier struggles. This will only weaken the system and cause harm both
to workers and the public. Ambulance
attendants are not willing to accept this retrogression. They demand
that the government stop this irresponsible cynical manoeuvring and
negotiate agreements with the workers that are
acceptable to them and improve the situation in the health care system.
"We want to conclude a collective agreement for the
people we represent, with the priorities we have put forward," Jean
Gagnon, the representative of the FSSS-CSN pre-hospital
sector, told Workers' Forum. "Employers, including
Urgences-Santé, must have negotiating mandates so that we can
sit down and settle once and for all. It is up to the Ministry to
ensure that we can negotiate with employers because our employers are
only intermediaries in this process. This has been going on for two
years. We had no choice but to go on
strike."
During their strike, paramedics continue to provide
emergency services to the population. However, ambulance vehicles will
no longer be posted on-site at sporting or artistic events
and will dispatched only if required. Paramedics will no longer perform
their administrative duties (such as filling out forms for billing
patients) and will reduce their ambulance
maintenance work to essentials.
The struggle of paramedics is an important feature of
the workers' movement for a pro-social Quebec to resist downward
pressure on society and deserves the support of all.
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