BY JOHN STEELE
TORONTO - The Ontario government's drive to brand the strike of 126,000 primary and secondary school teachers as "illegal" failed November 3, when Ontario Justice James MacPherson turned down the government's application for a court injunction ordering the teachers back to work.

MacPherson rejected the government's argument that the strike at this point was causing "irreparable harm" or flouting the law. "The record demonstrates that they [teachers] made the decision in a careful, concerned, and reluctant fashion," he said. "The strike has been remarkably peaceful _ [and] the teachers do not believe that they are disregarding the law." He said that the government's move in the court was "significantly premature" and stated it was up to the local school boards, who employ the teachers, to go to the Ontario Labor Relations Board for a ruling on the legality of the strike.

Teachers hailed the ruling as a "moral victory." They have been on a massive "political protest" since October 27 against Bill 160, the Conservative government's proposed education "reform" legislation. Despite the strengthening of the strike, the government of Premier Michael Harris says it will not cave in to the Ontario Teachers Federation (OTF) demand to gut Bill 160 or withdraw it altogether.

Cheers went up on picket lines around the province when the court decision was reported. Students, teachers, and parents on the lines chanted "we won't back down" and embraced each other. This determined mood was expressed the next day when between 1,000 and 1,500 teachers and supporters rallied at Centennial College in Scarborough, a working-class suburb of Toronto. The rally themes centered on defense of public education, including adult education and junior kindergarten, which has already come under the government knife. Many carried placards reading: "Teachers care, we can't back down."

"This is the fight of our life," said Elaine Barrett, a secondary school teacher for 10 years. "If we have to lose three or four weeks pay [to win], then we have to do it." Since the teachers are not striking against the boards who employ them, but are protesting the government, they get no strike pay from the five unions to which they belong.

In a statement distributed to the demonstrators, OTF president Eileen Lennon said that the court decision "is a major defeat for [Premier] Harris. The Premier is now faced with some brutal realities: he can either sit down with the OTF and deal with the Federation's concerns about Bill 160, or he can push ahead and try to bully the teachers either by recalling the legislature or by trying to get a ruling from the Ontario Labor Relations Board.

"It is clearer today than ever, the Bill 160 will not improve education, that it shifts control [of education] from the communities to the cabinet, that it gives the government the means by which to cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of schools."

Bill 160 says almost nothing about education itself. It removes the power of the unions to negotiate students' learning and teachers' working conditions with the school boards, by giving the cabinet the power to determine all aspects of education, including class size. The government has announced it intends to reduce the time teachers now have to prepare classes - a move which the OTF says could result in the firing of up to 10,000 teachers.

Growing support for teachers' fight
Support for the teachers' stand has been growing. Before the strike, polls showed about 42 percent were in favor of the teachers' opposition to Bill 160. A more recent poll showed 54 percent of those polled were behind the strike - including 59 percent of parents. The strike has closed schools for 2.1 million students. Conservative members of the Provincial Parliament are being flooded with complaints about the government's admission that it plans to take up to $700 million out of the $14 billion dollar education budget.

Melody Simard and Nancy Lague, on the picket line in front of the CCVS Vocational School in Cornwall, near Montreal, reported that all members of the Schools Council, which includes representatives of the teachers, parents, community, and business support the teachers. "They have seen what the cuts have done and don't want more," they said. Teachers' union leader Greg McGillis explained that in the Cornwall region where 25 percent of students are French speaking, further cuts would "devastate" French language education.

In the small community of Woodstock 2,000 teachers and supporters turned out to a rally October 31 at the office of the local member of the provincial parliament. Instead of picketing the three high schools in the area, teachers have taken over the one main street in the town, which they picket every day.

There have been a few small actions against the strike. At an October 29 rally of several thousand teachers at the provincial legislature, a small group of students from Northern Secondary School set up a counter protest. "You have the wrong attitude, get back to negotiations," yelled Sabrina Kloetzig, 16.

In Newmarket, about 100 members of the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), and Canadian Union of Public Employees, which organizes the 40,000 school support staff, who have refused to cross picket lines, joined 25 teachers on the picket line at Bogart Public School, where 18 of 45 teachers have crossed the line. Most schools, however, are shut tight. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation reported that of the 5,000 members of District 16, only 57 had crossed as of November 3.

The Canadian Taxpayers Association has now announced that it is attempting to go the complex route of filing a complaint before the OLRB on behalf of citizens in each of the school board districts.

In the meantime the picket lines remain and the OTF continues to hold rallies and demonstrations around the province. At a November 4 news conference CAW President Basil Hargrove called for a massive turnout at a union-sponsored solidarity rally at the Queen's Park legislature in Toronto, for the afternoon of November 8.

In a statement given to the Militant at the Centennial College rally, CAW member Joanne Pritchard, who is the Communist League candidate for mayor of Toronto in the November 10 municipal election, said: "The court ruling reflects the massive support by working people and students throughout Ontario and across Canada for the line in the sand drawn by the teachers' against the government's cuts to education. This support strengthens the ongoing fight against cuts to health care, other social services, and the government's union-busting efforts.

"The Harris government can be beaten back in its efforts to gut public education and weaken the teachers' unions. We need to double our efforts to explain to co-workers, friends and others the justice of the teachers' struggle, and to involve them in picket lines, rallies and demonstrations. In the final days of the election campaign, this is what my campaigners will be doing."

John Steele is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 2113. Gary Watson, a member of CAW Local 1285 in Bramalea; Grant Hargrave, a member of the IAM in Montreal; and Young Socialist member Kevin Austin, a student at Woodstock Collegiate Institute, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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