BY JOHN STEELE
TORONTO, Ontario - Picket lines went up at thousands of primary and secondary schools across Ontario October 27, as 126,000 members of the Ontario Teachers' Federation (OTF) went on strike in a "political protest" against Bill 160 - the Ontario Conservative government's impending education "reform" legislation. The strike, which the government and media have branded "illegal," affects 2.1 million students. The OTF is the umbrella organization for five teachers' unions.

The teachers' confrontation with the government has become the front line in the resistance of working people in Ontario to the antiunion austerity drive of the provincial government of Premier Michael Harris, who was elected in 1995 on a tax-cutting platform called the Common Sense Revolution. Despite the pervasive government and media campaign depicting teachers as a privileged "special interest group" standing in the way of change, widespread support for the teachers on the picket lines was evident the first day of the strike.

Before dawn, 20 members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation marched at Oakwood collegiate in pouring rain mixed with snow. Their picket signs read, "Underfunding education is child neglect"; "Cuts hurt students"; "Teachers working conditions are students learning conditions"; and "Another billion in cuts will cripple education."

As the teachers were describing their walkout as an act of "mass civil disobedience" like the civil rights struggle against racist segregation in the United States in the 1960s, one motorist drove by with his fist in the air and yelled, " I support you, I like the power."

Hundreds of others honked their horns in support.

"Seeing you here this morning brought tears to my eyes. I'm with you all the way," said passerby Cheryl Taylor, herself a teacher at a community college, not involved in the strike.

Eight Oakwood students walked the line with their teachers. All of them helped organize a walkout of Oakwood students the previous week against Bill 160. "We are doing this because the cuts affect us and we support the teachers," said grade 13 student Jessica Phillips.

Don Lee, the owner of the Biblio cafe across the street, provided the pickets with a thermos of steaming coffee. "I'm going to keep doing this every day till they win," he said.

At Central Tech, where 2,600 students go to school, about 50 pickets sang "Hit the road Mike. Don't cutback no more, no more."

Attempt to brand strike as `illegal'
In the week before the strike the media campaign against the teachers was vicious. The day after the OTF announced its October 27 strike deadline, the Toronto Sun, a mass-circulation tabloid ready by many workers had a huge headline pasted over a picture of the teachers' union leaders which read "Who the hell do you think you are?" The editorial painted the union leaders as criminals out to make children suffer. The Toronto Star and the nationally-circulated English language Globe and Mail also published editorials urging the teachers not to strike. On the first day of the strike, some motorists were reported to have given pickets the finger, although horn-honking in solidarity was much more prevalent.

An angry mother in Kleinburg who wouldn't give her name confronted them on the picket line at Woodbridge public school. "As role models, [teachers] are telling my child that when you disagree with something it's all right to take illegal action," she said.

The government has now launched a $1 million advertising campaign with a TV ad featuring Harris, who states, "We live in a law-abiding society; breaking the law is not the right example. Let's put our children first."

"They say this is illegal," said Keith Farrow, Central Tech athletic director. "But when the premier goes on TV and lies to the population I say that's morally criminal. I am amazed at the support out here on the street. We have steelworkers with us. We will stay out as long as it takes to get rid of Bill 160."

During the previous week Harris was forced to admit that contrary to previous promises, he intended to cut up to another $667 million after previously chopping half a billion from the $14 billion education budget.

Wearing an orange picket captain's cap, Spanish language and ESL teacher Barb Landrey reported that the coffee shop around the corner had phoned the union offering to open its doors to the teachers at 4:30 a.m. "The public supports us because Harris wants to crush the teachers' unions so he can destroy public education and set up charter private schools," said Landrey.

"This is the first time I have ever been on a picket line. I used to be against unions. But we have to do it," said tech teacher Brian Hepburn, outside the George Harvey Collegiate Institute. "I'm proud of the union."

Pickets at the C.E. Webster Junior Public School included members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which organizes 40,000 school support staff - the janitors, secretaries, and teachers' assistants. They have refused to cross the picket lines, forcing many of the local school boards to close the facilities. Pointing to a major hospital down the street that is scheduled to be shut down, one of the CUPE pickets compared the attacks on education to the government's cutbacks in health care.

At Bloor Collegiate, a tractor trailer driver blasted his air horn in support of the pickets. Three members of the student council brought donuts to their teachers. "We organized a student assembly to present the pros and cons of Bill 160," said grade 10 student Saba Quadri. "The majority were against it. We don't want bigger class room sizes."

Thousands rally against Bill 160
In the early afternoon more than 10,000 teachers, students, members of other unions, and parent organizations converged on the provincial government legislature chanting "we won't back down." Similar rallies demanding the withdrawal of Bill 160 were held in cities across the province.

Under Bill 160, which the government wants adopted and in place by January 1, the provincial cabinet would have the power to decide minimum and maximum limits for class size and a new funding formula that opens the door to more cuts in funding. The bill would also permit the government to reduce the class preparation time of teachers as well as the use of non-certified, non- unionized staff in the class room. These measures could cut up to 10,000 teachers from the school system, and would strip teachers of their current right to bargain with school boards over both the learning conditions of students and working conditions of teachers.

"We will not back down. We will stay in the streets until the government meets our demands, which are the demands of the majority in this province," Eileen Lennon, president of the OTF, told the rally.

"The labor movement will not be separated from the teachers in their struggle. We are shoulder to shoulder and we won't back down," Linda Torney, president of the Labor Council of Metropolitan Toronto, said in her speech. Torney reviewed the recent victory by the Ontario Federation of Labor in forcing the Harris government through a series of city-wide strikes and demonstrations to drop anti-strike provisions aimed at government workers from Bill 136, another piece of legislation that is part of its austerity drive.

Support for the teachers was also expressed by the leaders of both the Liberal and union-based, social democratic New Democratic Party.

Canadian Autoworkers president Basil Hargrove pledged action by that union's membership if the government "tries to impose fines on you or jail your leaders."

The walkout began following the collapse of talks between the government and the teachers' unions just hours before the strike deadline set by the OTF. Over the heads of their unions, education Minister David Johnson then appealed directly to teachers to reject the "illegal strike." He said the schools would be open and he intended to take his daughter to school.

At the same time he complained: "The government has not ruled out any option. If there is an illegal strike, the law has already been broken. If someone is prepared to break the law, will they be prepared to obey a second law?"

Newspaper columnists have begun to talk about the possibility of other unions taking job action in support of teachers if the government tries to force them back to work with some form of back to work legislation or court order.

Following the rally at the legislature, Premier Harris told the media that the government was preparing the ground for a court injunction against the teachers. Strike leaders could be found in contempt of court and jailed if they disobeyed such a court order.

"This will take a few days to prepare," said Harris. "But, if we go this route it is not clear that the schools will be reopened."

In response to this move, OTF president Lennon stated that she would be "hard-pressed to encourage my members to respect an injunction."

John Steele is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 2113. Guy Tremblay, a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 5338, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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