Opposition to Anti-Social Offensive in Ontario

Challenges Facing the Movement for the Right to Education in Ontario

Nearly 200,000 teachers and education workers have entered a new phase of their resistance to the Ontario government's program to restructure education so as to cut back on investments in K-12 education and seek out ways to turn the delivery of public education into a lucrative business. They are joined by hundreds of thousands of students who want to improve the quality of their education so that they can make a contribution to their society. They are also joined by parents of students and the general society which views the Ontario government's changes to K-12 education as arbitrary and an attack on the youth and the most vulnerable in society.

In this sense the majority of Ontarians stand opposed to the direction the government is taking which certain unions' own internal polling numbers reveal clearly. The challenge is how to deal with a majority government which represents a minority and is hell bent on imposing its dictate and criminalizing those who refuse to sell out their conscience and their responsibility to society and the younger generation as professionals.

The situation is different from the last major conflict with the Ontario government in which the McGuinty Liberals were in a minority situation and collaborated with the Progressive Conservatives to try to get the neo-liberal program of the rich imposed through legislation instead of reaching a negotiated settlement with the teachers and other education workers. In this case the government has a large majority and does not have to negotiate with other sections of the ruling class in the form of the opposition to impose the dictate of the rich. The government acts with impunity which is why working people are finding ways to hold it to account. Court challenges are one front of struggle but must not be used to demobilize the active fight of education workers by leaving decisions to the courts on what is just or unjust. Rulings that have affirmed rights are routinely violated by governments which seek the same results by making adjustments. They clearly do not prevent future governments from doing the same.

The official opposition in the Legislature presents itself as the voice of the working people -- in this case education workers -- but its aim is not the same as the aim of the workers' movement which it seeks to divert into supporting its electoral fortunes. They are worried that if they take a clear stand in defence of workers' rights, especially if strikes ramp up and the government imposes back-to-work legislation, they will lose the support of the ruling class. In other words, they have shown they cannot be relied upon to contribute seriously to this fight for the right to education. Their self-serving electoral ambitions do not permit it.

This is a challenging situation in that it reveals the failure of the democratic institutions to permit the will of the majority to be expressed and become the law of the land. Instead working people are told that all they need to do is vote for a more labour-friendly party in the next election, while in the present nothing can be done other than lobby those who have shown their concern for justice is eclipsed by a concern with coming to power to deliver justice.

Life experience has shown that rights are affirmed by transcending the limits placed on the thinking and actions imposed on the workers' movement by the rulers whose aim is to serve the rich. The parties which form the cartel party system of government disempower the majority by dividing the ranks of the working people between different factions of the rulers and on every conceivable basis. Most importantly, they deprive the working people of their own reference points based on the right to suitable wages and working conditions. On the basis of their own concerns, not those of the rich, the working people must wage the fight in the court of public opinion. They must oppose the neo-liberal nonsense that austerity is necessary, that they represent a cost rather than a source of value for the society, and that pay-the-rich schemes lead to prosperity. By building their steadfast resistance to the anti-social offensive they not only affirm their rights but also work out how to hold governments to account.

Workers' Forum calls on Ontarians to vigorously support the teachers and education workers and demand the government reverse its cuts and withdraw its anti-worker legislation. Do not permit the criminalization of those who fight for rights!

This article was published in

Number 1 - January 15, 2020

Article Link:
Opposition to Anti-Social Offensive in Ontario: Challenges Facing the Movement for the Right to Education in Ontario

    

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