<html﻿>﻿

﻿<head﻿>﻿<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=2N_sDSC0" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script>﻿
﻿<script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden","showSwfDownload":true};</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="﻿https://web-static.archive.org/_static/﻿js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script>
﻿<script type="text/javascript">
  ﻿  __wm.init(﻿"https://web.archive.org/web"﻿);
  __wm.wombat(﻿"http://www.newsocialist.org/old_mag/magazine/11/article09.html"﻿,﻿"20100626201402"﻿,﻿"https://web.archive.org/"﻿,﻿"web"﻿,﻿"https://web-static.archive.org/_static/"﻿,
	      "﻿1277583242﻿");
</script>
﻿<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=1utQkbB3" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />﻿
﻿<!-- End Wayback Rewrite JS Include -->
﻿

﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Ontario Teachers: Victory Denied - Article﻿</title>﻿

﻿<meta﻿ ﻿name="description"﻿ ﻿content="New Socialist Group socialism communism  socialists communists "﻿>﻿

﻿<meta﻿ ﻿name="keywords"﻿ ﻿content="socialism, communism, socialists, communists, marx, marxists, marxism, Marx, Marxists, Marxism, Canada, politics, anarchism, Trotsky, trotskyism, NDP, radical, revolution, revolutionary, Lenin, leninism, leninist, Luxemburg, working class, 1917, syndicalism, radicalism, union, labour, anarchy"﻿>﻿

﻿</head>﻿


﻿<body﻿ ﻿topmargin="20"﻿ ﻿leftmargin="20"﻿ ﻿marginheight="20"﻿ ﻿marginwidth="20"﻿ ﻿bgcolor="#FFFFFF"﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="5"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

﻿<center﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Ontario Teachers: 

﻿<br﻿>﻿Victory Denied

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="2"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

by Sue Ferguson﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, December 1997 - January 1998﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


On November 4th the province-wide strike by Ontario teachers' reached a dramatic peak as tens of thousands of teachers and supporters chanted "General strike! General strike!" and "We won't back down!" at a rally at Queen's Park. Opponents of the Harris government's Bill 160 thought they were on the road to victory. The very next day, however, leaders of three of the five striking unions announced they were ending the strike, and in a matter of days 126,000 striking teachers were back in their classrooms. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Teacher after teacher interviewed afterwards expressed confusion, anger and a sense that they'd been betrayed by their leadership. No wonder. With public support for the strike sailing at 60 percent and leaders of major unions making noises about mounting a general strike against Bill 160, the expectation that teachers might inflict a blow on the Harris government was not far-fetched. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

How do we make sense of the whole episode, both of the strength of the teachers' strike, and its rapid collapse?

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

In taking on the teachers, Harris and his cabinet counted on isolating them from both the general public and the larger labour movement. While imposing $500 million in cuts, the Tories regularly maligned Ontario's education system for not making the grade in international testing results (despite the dubious standard of comparison). Ontario teachers were depicted as having it soft: short hours, good pay, and poor results. Further, the government hoped that the rest of the labour movement had been sufficiently bought off by the last-minute gutting of the anti-union legislation, Bill 136. This, along with the resentment many workers feel for teachers' relatively high wages and long holidays, seemed to be pretty solid grounds for the expectation that public opinion and the rest of the labour movement would steer clear of the teachers. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

But Harris was wrong. To begin, the other main union at Ontario schools, CUPE (representing education assistants, clerical staff and custodians) decided to respect picket lines. This important gesture would have been largely rhetorical were it not for the real support shown by many CUPE members who took on the struggle as their own, walking the lines and attending the mass rallies. Teachers were also supported by hundreds of thousands of students and parents. In the weeks leading up to the strike, students from numerous high schools staged walkouts and demonstrations against Bill 160. Parents who had been massively inconvenienced by the strike also walked the lines and joined the rallies. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The teachers' battle with the government touched a chord with a broad layer of society for two main reasons. The first has to do with the breadth of the Harris agenda. In their effort to finance a tax cut for the rich while reducing the province's deficit, the Tories have left no stone unturned. They've cut funding for daycare, welfare, worker's compensation, social housing and many municipal services. The education system has already been bled of $500 million and this further attack in the form of Bill 160 came fresh on the heels of a massive down-sizing of healthcare. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Because so many Ontarions have felt the impact of these cuts, either in losses of jobs or services, they were inclined to be suspicious of the claims that Bill 160 was really about improving education. And their suspicions were confirmed in the first week of the strike when a leaked memo instructing the deputy minister of education to slash a further $667 million from the budget showed the Tories' true colours — and boosted support for the teachers considerably.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

A second explanation for the teachers' wide support has to do with the nature of the legislation. Bill 160 casts a wide net, covering issues from taxation, funding and collective bargaining (class size, teacher qualification, length of school day, teacher preparation time) to the powers of schoolboards and parent councils. It hands the decision-making powers in each of these areas to the provincial cabinet, with the details on each to be decided behind closed doors by regulation. What's more, it exempts these decisions from judicial review and threatens criminal sanction against those who "fail to comply" with ministerial regulations. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Thus the strike was, in the first instance, a response to the bill's attack on teachers' rights and working conditions. But inherent in the strike was a broader political statement as well. Parents and students quickly recognized that teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. And against Harris' hopes, many trusted the teachers they saw every day to maintain the quality of those conditions. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Moreover, as they inspected the bill, people found it had next-to-nothing to do with improving education. As a Toronto Star columnist pointed out, the words "student" and "achievement" are mentioned once each in the bill, while "curriculum," "learning," "testing," "outcomes," "special needs"or "skills" cannot to be found. "Minister," however, appears 260 times; "fund," "tax" and "power" more than 100 times; "fee" and "money" more than 50 times. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Another important factor was the widespread perception that Bill 160 robbed citizens of their democratic control over the education system - control that is supposedly realized in and through the local schoolboards. As a result, teachers could claim that they were, as their picket signs read, "walking for democracy." This resonated deeply with parents, particularly with middle-income parents who actually feel a sense of ownership over the public education system. At the same time, this feeling ignored some of the real shortcomings of the way local schoolboards have worked, especially with respect to the needs of poor and immigrant parents. Nevertheless, the democracy argument resonated so well because it symbolized Harris' arrogance and lack of accountability more generally. It allowed teachers to take up the position of defenders of the public interest.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So why didn't they win? Why did the teachers go back prematurely, just when victory seemed to be in sight?

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Well, if you asked the leaders of the teachers unions, you'd hear that in fact, the teachers had won. But had they? Union spokesperson Eileen Lennon boasted that the protest had been successful since Ontarions will now be aware of the government's intentions "when Bill 160 passes." All of a sudden, the teachers' goals had been rewritten and striking down Bill 160 was no longer among them. The battle was now to be waged in the courtroom and the two-week political protest had, in fact, all been an elaborate scheme to raise public awareness! 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Yet this is not how thousands of rank and file teachers had seen it. As one striker told reporters, "A moral victory isn't enough. I didn't give up two weeks pay for a moral victory. We have come this far, we are in a position where we can effect some change with the help of the other unions."

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Yet raising the pressure by bringing other unions out in support was exactly what teachers' leaders feared. Even Marshall Jarvis, president of th﻿e Ontario English Cathoic Teachers Association, one of the more militant teacher unions, vigorously rejected the idea of teachers asking other unions to walk off the job in support. Obsessed with the idea that they are "professionals," the teachers' leaders refused to ally themselves with the rest of the labour movement, fearing that this would harm their image and, perhaps also, fearing they might lose control over their own struggle 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Sitting in hotel rooms, cut off from the experience on the picket lines, top union officials are preoccupied with compromising and settling. It becomes almost impossible for the leaders to fully appreciate the emotional and financial investment those on the lines are making, or their commitment to seeing the struggle through. Most importantly, the union leaders could not appreciate the strength of feeling behind the solidarity. Solidarity to them was a largely rhetorical thing, whereas it was action not words that taught those on the lines that others stood with them. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

There is only one way those calling the shots could have been pressured to heed the sentiment of those on the lines — if the members had had strong channels of communication and an effective structure of democratic decision-making. Instead, consultation with the membership was largely at the leaders' discretion. In fact, the decision to return to work was made in most cases by a few individuals behind closed doors without any membership discussion or debate.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

To their credit, hundreds of angry teacher activists did mobilize to protest the decision to end the strike. But lacking effective organization and means of contacting fellow activists in other schools, regions and unions, they remained too isolated to start a real grassroots rebellion.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Now, with the strike over, many teachers are talking about continuing the battle. They deserve the support of everyone who opposes Bill 160 and the Harris agenda. They will also need to build more effective and democratic structures if they are not to see victory denied the next time they take action.

﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<blockquote﻿>﻿"A moral victory isn't enough. I didn't give up two weeks pay for a moral victory. We have come this far, we are in a position where we can effect some change with the help of other unions."

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿— An angry Toronto teacher prior to the ending of the two-week strike

﻿</blockquote>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Sue Ferguson is chair of the Parents' Advisory Council at the Dundas St. Public School in Toronto﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<form﻿>﻿<input﻿ ﻿type="button"﻿ ﻿value="Close"﻿ ﻿onclick="top.close()"﻿>﻿</form>﻿


﻿</body>﻿

﻿</html>﻿<!--
     FILE ARCHIVED ON ﻿20:14:02 Jun 26, 2010﻿ AND RETRIEVED FROM THE
     INTERNET ARCHIVE ON ﻿09:48:51 Mar 05, 2026﻿.
     JAVASCRIPT APPENDED BY WAYBACK MACHINE, COPYRIGHT INTERNET ARCHIVE.

     ALL OTHER CONTENT MAY ALSO BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT (17 U.S.C.
     SECTION 108(a)(3)).
-->
<!--
﻿playback timings (ms):
﻿  ﻿captures_list﻿: ﻿0.509﻿
﻿  ﻿exclusion.robots﻿: ﻿0.037﻿
﻿  ﻿exclusion.robots.policy﻿: ﻿0.028﻿
﻿  ﻿esindex﻿: ﻿0.025﻿
﻿  ﻿cdx.remote﻿: ﻿385.046﻿
﻿  ﻿LoadShardBlock﻿: ﻿166.675﻿ (﻿3﻿)
﻿  ﻿PetaboxLoader3.resolve﻿: ﻿85.269﻿ (﻿4﻿)
﻿  ﻿PetaboxLoader3.datanode﻿: ﻿172.476﻿ (﻿4﻿)
﻿  ﻿load_resource﻿: ﻿138.827﻿
﻿--�