Photo by J.P. Antonacci, Brant News
Brian Hazlewood, right, president of the OSSTF teachers bargaining unit District 23, marches with supporters of organized labour during Brantford's Labour Day parade on Clarence Street.
J.P. Antonacci
BRANT NEWS
Impending legislation that would strip Ontario’s teachers of their right to strike and allow the government to change existing contracts without negotiating with unions was the talk of a Labour Day rally held Monday afternoon outside the Brantford and District Labour Centre on Clarence Street.
“This anti-union legislation put forward by the McGuinty government is a threat to every working person in the province,” said Brian Hazlewood, president of the teachers bargaining unit within the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation District 23.
The legislation, which could pass early this week with Conservative support, removes teachers’ right to strike for two years and prevents them from appealing the bill to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
“This Putting Students First Act puts democracy last,” said Donna Howey, president of the Grand Erie Elementary Teachers’ Federation. “It’s dangerous.”
Howey said she is baffled that the government clamped down on the potential for labour disruptions when teachers unions publicly insisted that a strike was not in the cards.
“This legislation isn’t about students – it’s about stripping workers’ rights,” Howey said, vowing teachers unions and the Canadian Union of Public Employees would challenge the government’s “unprecedented” attack on labour at the Supreme Court.
“Even Stephen Harper didn’t try to deny the right to an arbitrated settlement” during the Air Canada strike, Howey said.
Hazlewood accused the province of using the threat of a teachers strike to instil fear in the electorate as part of a “cynical” attempt to win an upcoming by-election in Kitchener-Waterloo.
“(Unions) will once again rise to the occasion,” to counter such tactics, Hazlewood said.
Members of the Steelworkers Union and other labour groups joined CUPE and the teachers on a parade through downtown Brantford before returning to the labour centre parking lot for a barbecue lunch and kids activities.
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The article says “Impending legislation that would strip Ontario’s teachers of their right to strike and allow the government to change existing contracts without negotiating with unions was the talk of a Labour Day rally held Monday afternoon outside the Brantford and District Labour Centre on Clarence Street”.
The McGuinty Ontario government spent billions of our tax dollars to bail out private car companies. The McGuinty Ontario government wasted about $1.1 billion on E-health. It has wasted perhaps hundreds of millions of our tax dollars in the ORNGE fiasco. It shut down building of a gas fired Hydro generating station in Mississauga and that will cost the government tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in payments and lawsuits.
The Ontario government has created a large deficit and has increased debt and it now wants teachers to tighten their belts.
The Ontario government wants to pass legislation to stop teacher’s strikes and lockouts. That will strip teachers a tool they can use if negotiations reach a stsndstill and it will weight the process in favour of the government and give it more power. It makes collective bargaining a joke.
Why isn’t the Ontario government willing to negotiate, use mediation if necessary and go to binding arbitration if required? Why can’t the Onatrio government present its case, justify its case and negotiate an agreement? Why is the Ontario goverment afraid to negotiate?
And, if the Ontario government wants to take such a strong stand agaisnt teachers to save money, why doesn’t the Ontario government take a strong stand and stop subsidizing and bailing out private companies that should be using their own money to look after themselves?
And, if the Ontario government needs to save money, why doesn’t it take a strong stand agaisnt natives instead of using our tax money to appease them and give money to Indian reservss when according to section 91 part 24 of the Canadian Constitution the federal government is responsible for “Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians”, not the province?
And why didn’t our Brantford councilors take a wage freeze so they could ask for that much less when they want money from the Ontario government?
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