The Ontario Teachers' Federation, the umbrella organization for the five teachers' unions, has vowed to shut the province's 5,169 schools attended by over 2 million students in an "illegal" strike if the government doesn't back down. The teachers' mobilization, backed by the labor movement as a whole, has put the government on the defensive. Education Minister John Snobelen, who has earned the hatred of teachers, shifted to a new cabinet portfolio.

On October 6, some 24,000 teachers and their supporters filled every seat in Maple Leaf Gardens here, while 4,000 more who could not get in took over the street in front of the ice-hockey arena. That same night 7,000 rallied in Peterborough, and the following night another 8,000 in Hamilton. The teachers sang and waved placards and flags, listening to speeches from various union officials. Canadian Labor Congress president Robert White got a standing ovation after pledging the support of the CLC's 2.3 million members to the fight.

Construction workers, nurses, hospital workers, provincial government workers, steelworkers, and others were at the rally. Representatives of the Liberal and union-based New Democratic Party also attended.

"The government wants to take away our right to strike," said Bob Waters, a teacher at Humber Collegiate Institute. "They want a total say over teaching conditions and what gets taught. It's an extreme attack against democratic rights." Waters is a veteran of the 1975 strike of secondary school teachers that forged the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation as a union.

"We can't vote, but we can make ourselves heard by supporting our teachers," said Robin Bryce, 15. Bryce was among the students who walked out of the West End Alternative school to attend the rally.

At Woburn Collegiate institute 300 students lined the road outside the school chanting "we won't back down," to protest Bill 160. "Our math class has 45 people in a portable" classroom trailer, Woburn student Tom Papuckoski, 16, said. "Teachers can't get to you if you want to ask a question."

Bill 160 would transfer decisions over class size, and curriculum from the teachers' unions and school boards to the provincial government; slash class preparation time for teachers, and increase the number of days students and teachers spend in class per year. It would also allow the use of non-certified instructors in some subjects. Similar teachers' struggles are taking place across the country. In early October about 14,000 teachers demonstrated outside the provincial legislature in Alberta demanding more money for education.

In Ontario, the teachers' struggle comes on the heels of a victory by the labor movement against Bill 136. Demonstrations and one-day protest strikes organized in "Days of Action" over the past year forced the government to drop antistrike provisions for government and hospital workers.

The next Day of Action against the austerity drive of the Conservative provincial government will be in the auto assembly center of Winsdor October 17.

It takes place in the context of the countdown towards a possible teachers' strike, discussion by hospital workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees over whether to strike against hospital closures, and an impending national strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.  
 
 
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