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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, OPSEU Defies Harris - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿OPSEU Defies Harris:

﻿<br﻿>﻿Strikers Held Firm, but Layoffs Begin.

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by Myles Magner﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, May - June 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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After five weeks on the picket line in what has been called the biggest strike in Ontario's history, more than 50,000 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union returned to work April 1, claiming a victory over Premier Mike Harris and the province's Tory government. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Over the course of the strike, OPSEU confounded its critics, mounting serious picket lines, holding the support of most of its members, standing up under the blows of the provincial riot squad, and forcing concessions from a government bent on gutting its employees' job security and seniority rights. Although they weren't able to halt Tory plans to slash public services, OPSEU members displayed enormous courage and solidarity. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Hammering OPSEU was a key element of Harris' "common sense revolution." The legal rights and collective agreements of public sector workers are the main barrier to the Tories' plans for an $8 billion cut to health, education and social services and a $5 billion tax break for the rich. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

In the run-up to the strike, the Tories seemed confident of defeating OPSEU on the picket lines. In the fall, their anti-labor law, Bill 7, reversed the NDP ban on the use of scabs and stripped public sector workers of "successor rights" -- the right to keep their jobs, unions and collective agreements when their services are privatized or contracted out. The one gain under the NDP's Bill 40 the Conservatives left in place was the provision giving public servants the right to strike, and the government the right to lock them out. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Far from caving in under the pressure, though, OPSEU members displayed a fighting spirit that surprised even their own leaders. Despite broad hints from several Tory cabinet members that a strike might be countered by widespread use of scabs, union members rejected the government's final offer by a two to one margin. And as the February 26 strike date approached, pressure at the local level forced the OPSEU leadership to abandon a plan to slowly escalate the strike and call out all 55,000 strikers by the third day of picketing. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Once on the picket lines, strikers defied predictions that their picket lines would collapse when they started felt the sting of living on strike pay of $100 a week. Instead, by the second week of the walkout, strikers and their supporters in Toronto began to mount a series of mass pickets to shut down underground tunnels being used by a small number of members to cross picket lines. Over the course of the strike, by the government's own figures, scabbing by OPSEU members never topped 10 per cent of those eligible to strike. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

A series of mass pickets and rallies played a crucial role in sustaining morale and building the strength of the strike. In Toronto, escalating actions, including a rally by 4,000 strikers March 8, culminated in a mass picket of the opening of the legislature on March 18. After turning away Tory MPPs and Cabinet members for several hours, strikers and their supporters were attacked viciously by the Ontario Provincial Police riot squad, one of whose members vowed prior to the attack to "whack 'em and stack 'em. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So outrageous was the OPP assault -- which injured strikers and a member of the Metro Toronto Police -- that the Harris government, which initially defended the riot squad's actions, was forced by public outcry to agree to an inquiry into the May 18 events. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Faced with the unexpected show of determination by OPSEU's membership, the Tories backed down on many of their demands for concessions. The final agreement, accepted by more than 90 percent of strikers, salvaged the principle of seniority by winning back three "bumps" (so that workers with more seniority can bump those with less), retained the six month's notice period for layoff, and doubled severance to two weeks for every year seniority for those who are laid off. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

While the strike produced some very real gains, it also represents a missed opportunity to challenge the broader agenda of cutbacks and layoffs. From day one, OPSEU president Leah Casselman and the rest of the union's leadership accepted the necessity of massive job cuts, choosing instead to challenge the fairness of the terms. As a result, within two weeks of their 'victory" more than 10,000 public servants were given pink slips on April 11 in the single largest layoff in the province's history. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

While the OPSEU leadership made no move to broaden the strike into a full-scale campaign against the Harris agenda, the same is true of the leadership of the rest of the Ontario labour movement. Despite financial pledges to OPSEU, and notwithstanding the commitment of the Ontario Federation of Labour to organizing days of protest against the Ontario Tories, there was no move to build solidarity strikes in an effort to widen the OPSEU struggle. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

In the end, then, both OPSEU and the Ontario Federation of Labour leaderships chose to stick to the rules of "normal" labour relations in which unions don't take action over one another's disputes. As a result, a real opportunity was missed for mass mobilization against the Harris government, especially in the wake of the 120,000 people who demonstrated in Hamilton on February 24. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Despite this, OPSEU members did prove that fighting back and strike action are far from pointless; they showed that militancy and solidarity can win gains, however limited. As 900,000 Ontario workers in the broader public sector head into contract negotiations, these are vitally important lessons. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Myles Magner is a union steward in OPSEU Local 5104.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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