The attack on teachers is an attack on all working people

People's Voice Ontario Bureau

     If the basis of all real wealth - the real economy, past, present and future - is the application of human labour‑power to material from the natural environment, why has the most draconian use of state power been summoned up as a weapon against the Ontario Teachers Unions? Most people would argue that teachers do not produce wealth. In fact, in the anti‑teacher propaganda blasted by the capitalist media and whispered in a thousand dark corridors, this slander against an honoured profession is perpetrated: why should people who are essentially a drain on the public purse be compensated so generously?

     What is it about this area of collective bargaining that would cause the ruling elite to instruct their political lackeys to suspend parliament, to violate constitutional law and go to direct one party rule?

     The capitalist state has undemocratically dispensed with parliament in Ontario, to launch an unhindered attack on the teachers' unions and their ability to exercise collective bargaining. The instrument of direct class intervention is the Ontario Liberal Party, with the Tories trying to be even more hawkish, and the NDP sitting on their hands.

     Now the silk gloves have been shed for the naked fist, dispelling any illusion that these three parties protect parliamentary democracy. If the NDP had called for massive public resistance, they could have done a service to all working people, especially if the trade union leaders who belong to the NDP had organized labour unity across the board with the Teachers.

     Any Marxist will see immediately the relationship of teachers to the real economy. Their vital role to the ability of capitalism to create and expropriate surplus value is the reproduction of labour-power, the primary human ingredient in the creation of wealth. The scientific and technological revolution demands an ever higher level of education and training for working people. This is about productivity and the rate of exploitation. This is about the uncountable wealth of the one percent.

     No educated person (the product of teachers) would vulgarize the value of the teaching profession as only an instrument to maintain and expand the parasite role of the one percent. But we live in a class society. The historic service of teachers against the mental pauperization of capitalism, their resistance to the increasing demand to produce literate industrial and social drones, instead of people armed with a sense of themselves and a demand for a better future, is a direct threat to the one percent.

     It is also no accident that generations of women have dominated and transformed the profession. Witness the power of their efforts embodied in the courage and unity of the Quebec student's strike. Witness the threat to the capitalist state when student activists are a major part in the defeat of a governing political party. You cannot separate teachers from students, from the awareness of the Occupy movement, from the mental hunger and sense of wrongness and violation that is surging through our youth and through the indigenous people.

     The viciousness of the attempted destruction of collective bargaining in Ontario can only be understood clearly with a world view of the antagonism between the capitalist class in the advanced stages of imperialist decline, and the possessors of labour‑power, the global working class. Teachers worldwide develop a consciousness that makes their students much more than units of labour power, an awareness of self that will become an awareness of class, an awareness that labour power is also the essential ingredient in building the shared wealth of a non‑exploiting socialist alternative.

     The crisis of capitalism will continue to destroy whatever stands in the way of its drive to buy more life for an obsolete and historically unnecessary system, at war with its own productive forces. In the crosshairs everywhere are those who teach our children and youth, those who preserve and pass on knowledge. The capitalists cannot dispense with teachers, but they seek to break their relative independence and their dedication to humanity. They want to turn teachers into trainers who prepare our young for more efficient and profitable exploitation. This struggle is about much more than sick days, wages or classroom size. These issues might be the field of battle, but the stakes are much higher.

     The Ontario Teachers are on the front line of defending labour rights. They will decide on the extent of their resistance, on their tactics, where to attack and where to retreat. The Communist Party calls for one hundred percent support, now and in the future.

CPC Ontario: The Attack on the Accepting Schools Act Threatens our Youth and Democratic Rights

Phil  Lees’ campaign of disinformation is a deliberate attempt to frighten and confuse parents and students in Thorncliffe and to foment hatred against LGBT youth in our schools and community.

Acceptance of LGBT youth in schools and acceptance of differences in sexual orientation and gender are well understood in Canada to mean protection of students from harm, and to promote acceptance and understanding of differences.  Acceptance of others includes acceptance and protection of all students, including those of different religions, different dress, and who come to Canada from different places of origin.

Communist Party Condemns Proroguing of Parliament: Recall the Legislature!

Withdraw Bill 155, repeal Bill 115 and restore Free Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector!

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) condemns Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s indefinite proroguing of the Provincial Parliament and suspension of parliamentary democracy, and demands the government recall Parliament and end its abuse of power.

Unable to pass his government’s anti-democratic “Protecting Public Services Act” (Bill 155) – which would legislate a wage freeze and suspend free collective bargaining across the public sector – the Premier wants to dispense with Parliament and try to impose his program of austerity without legislation. The government also hopes to evade any accountability or responsibility in the on-going exposure of wrong-doing by government Ministers and agencies.

The Liberals were counting on the Tories to support Bill 155, but the Tories are demanding the government go much further. The Tories are already campaigning to disembowel existing labour laws under the slogan of ‘flexible’ labour law ‘reform’. They want to eliminate the Rand Formula, make Ontario a right to work jurisdiction, and break the back of the labour movement as has been done in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other US states.

The Premier has said he will use the next months to force a negotiated wage freeze onto public sector unions. A negotiated wage freeze has the support of NDP leader Andrea Horwath according to statements made at a recent news conference filmed by CP24. While the NDP opposed a legislated freeze, they support a negotiated freeze. The NDP caucus apparently believes that working people should pay for an economic crisis caused by corporate greed and ably assisted by right-wing governments in Ontario and elsewhere. The 99% would disagree with the caucus, just as they disagreed with Bob Rae’s social contract in 1993.

The Liberals’ anti-labour, anti-democratic austerity agenda has provoked massive public opposition, including ongoing protests and demonstrations. The prorogation is bound to generate even more opposition as public outrage at the government’s abuse of power spills over.

The Communist Party calls on the Premier to immediately recall the Legislature, and move quickly to withdraw Bill 155, repeal Bill 115, and allow the province’s public employers and public sector unions to move forward to freely negotiate unfettered collective agreements.

The Premier must also take the strong medicine needed to clean up the corruption caused by years of privatization and deregulation by stealth, including ORNGE and other P3 arrangements, and by vote-buying in ridings with gas plants.

The Communist Party also demands that the Premier and the Liberal government, as well as the Tories and the NDP remove themselves from collective bargaining and let the public employers and public sector unions exercise their bargaining rights to negotiate free and unfettered agreements.

We stand with labour and all those who oppose this government’s austerity policies, and the efforts to download the costs of the economic crisis onto the backs of working people through this on-going attack on public sector wages, pensions, jobs and public services. A massive struggle against austerity in the streets and at the bargaining table is the only way to beat back the attack on wages, incomes, jobs and living standards, and save public services and assets.

Another Ontario is possible. And urgent. The Communist Party offers a 10 point prescription that is a pro-people alternative to austerity and is detailed on our web site www.communistpartyontario.ca.

Students -- support the teachers!

REPEAL BILL 115 -- THE ‘PUT STUDENTS “LAST” ACT’

Statement by the Young Communist League (Ontario)

It is time for Ontario high school and elementary students to rise up in support of teachers. The working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of students. Already, students are organizing walk-outs across Ontario against the McGuinty Liberal provincial government’s Bill 115.

Together, we can stop Bill 115!

If we don’t join together and push back, the consequences for teachers and students alike will be dire. If we unite, students can help protect democracy, defend workers’ fundamental rights – and force the government to repeal Bill 115.

Students first

A students-first agenda, in a nutshell, calls for quality education: public and accessible.

Education is not a business opportunity to make profit. It is the right of the youth, and a keystone in securing our future.  Another vital necessity for quality education is the right of teachers to form, participate in, and be represented by their labour unions.

Wave of high school protest sweeps Ontario in support of teachers

PV Ontario Bureau 

Ontario high school students are answering the passing of the McGuinty Liberal’s “Put Student’s First Act” or Bill 115 with a wave of walk-outs and protests across the province.

Students in multiple high schools have walked out in large and small communities. New reports have been filed from Toronto, Richmond Hill, Mississauga, Brampton, Bluewater, Georgian Bay, Owen Sound, Goderich, Wingham, Flesherton, Clarington, Kingston, the Kwartha Lakes, the Quinte region, and Ottawa – easily totaling over ten thousand students.

The actions overwhelmingly appear to have been in support of the teachers with students waving signs like “Your child’s future was the first to go with budget cuts,” “Putting students first means putting teachers first,” and “Democracy Last Act, Bill 115.” In some cases the students headed down to the local office of their Member of Provincial Parliament and staged rallies.

Many of the actions have been organized by social media. “The students are walking in support of teachers who are upset about their right to bargain and the withdrawal of extracurricular activities. The support and effort teachers give to students through education and especially their dedication to extracurriculars is beyond that call of duty, and that’s why students are walking out in support of teachers,” one pro-walkout Facebook group description said.

Speaking at a meeting of the Toronto Young Communist League, Ontario YCL organizer Drew Garvie held up an article from a newspaper report on the student protests and pointed out that the photo – which showed Stop Bill 115 signs – was the opposite from the anti-teacher message of the accompanying article.

High school students are already getting in touch with student unions and other progressive organizations including the YCL, he said.  “This is an attack on the entire education system and it is important for college and university students, and young workers in general, to be in support of these actions,” Garvie said.

The Ontario YCL is issuing a statement, which will be available on the YCL’s website and Rebel Youth blog, calling for “high school and elementary students to rise up in support of our teachers” and force the repeal of Bill 115. “Teachers working conditions are students learning conditions,” the statement says.

“Education is not a business opportunity to make profit, it is the right of the youth, and a keystone in securing our future.  Another vital necessity for quality education is the right of teachers to form, participate, and be represented by their labour unions,” the statement says.

“The government is telling everyone a Big Lie. They say there is no money, and no alternative to Bill 115’s anti-union measures. But Ontario is a province with tremendous natural wealth, a surplus of the super-rich, and many giant corporations and banks -- controlling all of the wealth.  In their shadow stand our hospitals, transit system, and schools that remain underfunded and neglected by the government. Who made the crisis in education? It wasn’t the teachers or the students – it was government policies which pay no serious regard to people’s needs, only corporate greed,” the statement says.

The YCL is fully supporting the student walk-outs and calling for them to spread. “When injustice becomes the law, resistance becomes a duty [...] Organizing a walk out can be done quickly and successfully using social media, word of mouth, defiance, courage and unity. Convince your friends. Convince your class. March through the halls and hit the streets!  You can suspend one student, but you cannot suspend hundreds.”

So far there have been no reports of students being disciplined because they participated in protests.

Submission on Bill 115 Putting Students First Act

From the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)

September 6, 2012

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) calls on the Liberal government to withdraw Bill 115, the misnamed “Putting Students First Act”, as unconstitutional, an attack on free collective bargaining, an attack on the local autonomy and democracy of elected School Boards, and an attack on quality public education in Ontario.   If Bill 115 is passed, it will open up an attack on the collective bargaining rights of all public sector workers in Ontario, threatening the labour, democratic and civil rights of all citizens.

In the event Bill 115 proceeds to a vote, we call on MPPs across all parties who support quality public education to defeat it.

The provincial government is not the bargaining agent and has no bargaining rights, and no legal rights to impose a collective agreement on either Ontario School Boards or the education unions that negotiate with them.  It is noteworthy that collective agreements were in force right across the province in August when the government drew up this Bill and began its disinformation and fear-mongering campaign that schools would not open September 3 due to imminent strikes and lock-outs.

In fact, if the provincial government had not interfered School Boards and education unions in the province would have been in negotiations in September working towards collective agreements.

The only crisis in education today is the one wholly manufactured in Queen’s Park by the Liberal government which has continued the policy of the chronic under-funding of education that was started by its predecessors the Harris Tories. The Liberals have followed the example of the Harris government and its Education Minister John Snobelen, and ‘created a useful crisis’ in an attempt to remove large sums of money from their education transfers over the next two years.

The real crisis is not in education, it’s in the spring budget where the Liberals undertook deep cuts to education, health, and social spending as recommended by Ontario’s bankers and corporations in the Drummond Report.  Some cuts made by the provincial government are even deeper than those proposed by Drummond.

Removing funding from education is not a vote-getter as the government well knows.  So the problem for the government was how to remove these funds without also losing public support.

Attacking unions and education workers as greedy, and counter-posing their wages, benefits and pensions to the full-day kindergarten programs being rolled out across the province, is the government’s cynical solution.

But it has back-fired as the results of the Kitchener Waterloo by-election are showing.  The public is rejecting union-bashing and attacks on free collective bargaining, quality public education, and local autonomy and democracy.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned that Bill 115 is unconstitutional and that the round-table discussions with OECTA and the French Boards took place under duress.

The ‘agreements’ were forced, and therefore not legal.

The unions in the education sector have stated they will challenge Bill 115 all the way to the Supreme Court, should it pass September 10th.

They could be joined by the province’s School Boards whose collective bargaining rights have also been eliminated, and whose authority over collective bargaining, budgeting, and in other vital areas is also attacked in Bill 115.

The government should withdraw Bill 115, and instead deliver the over-due and long-promised needs-based funding formula for public education, which would enable collective bargaining to proceed quickly and new collective agreements to be ratified.

Finally, we call on the government to heed the UN Human Rights Committee and end the discriminatory funding of religious schools in Ontario.   In fairness, as Quebec and Newfoundland  have already done, Ontario should phase out Catholic School funding and establish a single, secular, and quality public school system open to all – regardless of religion, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality.

Ending the duplication of two parallel school systems would save billions of taxpayer dollars over the long haul, generating needed funds for investment in capital repairs as well as programs and operating costs.  This will deliver a better quality education for all.

The government cannot ‘put students first’ if it puts teachers, educational workers, school boards, and democracy last.  We call on all MPPs to defeat Bill 115, if the government refuses to withdraw the Bill.

Respectfully submitted,

Elizabeth Rowley
Executive Committee
Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)