Jimmy Hazel and His Crew Prevail

As I have mentioned in this blog before, one of the many reasons I respect The Toronto Star is that it doesn't let its adherence to The Atkinson Principles blind it to good stories, even when those stories may lead to some uncomfortable questions about the abuses that unions are sometimes guilty of. Their stellar series of investigative reports last year, exploring the peculiar relationship between the Toronto District School Board and Jimmy Hazel’s 900-strong Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, upon which I based several blog posts, attests to that fact.

Today's Star reveals some potentially disturbing information which, if its implications are true, further suggest the scope of the Ontario McGuinty government's misuse of its political power, previously chronicled in its attempts to purchase a majority government through costly cancellations of gas-fired plants, engineering unnecessary byelections through the seduction of sitting members of the legislature, etc.

In an interview with The Star, the chair of the Toronto District School Board, Chris Bolton, suggests that the relationship between the governing Liberals and the Trades Council does not perhaps pass 'the smell test,' given the fact that, despite an extensive review of the financially-strapped board, the government has decided to preserve its contract with Hazel's group for the next two years:

“(The trades council members) are major contributors to the Liberals,” noted TDSB chair Chris Bolton in an interview with the Star. Having angered teachers with recent legislation, Bolton, a New Democrat, and others at the board speculate that the Liberals are trying to shore up support from other organized labour groups in the province as they prepare for an election.

The story reveals that Mr. Hazel's group sent two stiffly-worded letters to education minister Laurel Broten asking her to step in and preserve its old contract with Toronto’s public school board.

The Star's earlier investigation revealed evidence of the indebtedness the McGuinty Liberals may feel toward the Trades Council, whose members

...have campaigned for the Liberals, delivering election pamphlets door to door. Political donations to the Liberals from Hazel’s group and related unions who work for the school board total at least $675,000 since 2005. The Liberals responded one year by providing $253,000 of gift cards for Hazel’s TDSB workers, redeemable at Tiger Direct.

Education Minister Laurel Broten has defended the contract extension as an inevitable result of the collective agreements she imposed the other day on Ontario teachers, but one cannot help but wonder why the two have been thus conflated.

Given the increasingly suspect nature of the McGuinty government, however, expect no definitive answers to the disturbing questions raised by The Star anytime soon.

Thomas Walkom's Perspective on Teacher Unrest

On this blog I have written periodically about unions in both a favourable and a critical light. I have argued both for their necessity to mitigate the depredations that employers are sometimes given to, and I have pilloried them when cronyism or malfeasance have undermined their effectiveness.

In the latter part of my teaching career, I felt that my union, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, had become far too political in the worst sense of the word, listening only to the privileged few in executive positions while largely ignoring the rank and file, i.e., the frontline workers. As well, becoming advocates for the Ontario Liberal government, I felt, was always a very bad idea because while governments and unions may sometimes have common goals, their interests are not usually congruent, a fact that has become egregiously evident with the McGuinty government's betrayal of collective bargaining principles when it comes to teacher contracts.

In this morning's Star, columnist Thomas Walkom argues that the current unrest, soon to erupt into strikes, is easy to understand, given that teachers have nothing to lose due to the absence of anything resembling free bargaining in the current climate:

For teachers, the choice given them by the provincial Liberal government amounts to no choice at all. The government urges the unions to bargain with local school boards. But it insists that the final results must fit a template that it has already pre-ordained.

Those that don’t voluntarily agree to this template contract — which includes wage freezes for some, cutbacks that amount to wage reductions for others and the elimination of some benefits — will, under extraordinary legislation passed this fall, have it imposed on them.

The unions are being told: “Yes, we have a gun to your head. But if you wish, you can pull the trigger yourself.”

It seems the teaching unions prefer that the government’s prints alone be on the weapon.

He goes on to say that the nature of the constitutional challenge being mounted to the legislation, Bill 115, will be undermined should too many teacher locals sign contracts under duress, leaving the government with the opportunity to argue that it can't be unconstitutional if groups have agreed to its restrictions.

Left unsaid in his piece, however, is another reason I suspect the federations are refusing to be a further party to this charade. Because of the grave mistake they made in allying themselves with a political party, much of their effectiveness has been compromised over the past several years, to the point that their relevance, especially to younger teachers, is not readily apparent. I remember in the latter part of my career hearing some young teachers question the need for unions in general, and OSSTF in particular, never having witnessed them in their finest hours.

At least now, with the federations finally showing some backbone against government abuse of power, they will have an inkling of what unions are there for.

That Man Behind the Curtain

While I strongly believe in being critical of unions when their behaviour warrants it, I am steadfast in my belief that they serve a vital role for the working person, which, essentially, is all of us, at least until retirement. I therefore must disagree with those who claim that the harsh measures about to be imposed by the McGuinty government of Ontario are somehow at least partly attributable to union intransigence.

In his Star column this morning, Martin Regg Cohn offers a good analysis of the politics motivating Mr. McGuinty as the legislature prepares to resume tomorrow to deal with something called the Putting Students First Act, a patently manipulative title confirming all that Mr. Orwell warned us about when he wrote his seminal essay Politics and the English Language.

While arguing that the legislation is little more than political theater designed to bolster the image of the Liberals, Cohn lays some of the blame at the feet of the federations that refused to negotiate. The problem with such a position, as I have previously argued, is the fact that the government never offered even the semblance of bargaining in good faith, essentially saying that the teacher groups had a choice: either accept the terms or have them legislated, the only flexibility being in how the stipulated savings would be effected, as seen in the OECTA deal that will now apparently form the basis of the legislation.

So what is my point here? Despite those who claim unions' intransigence has led to this pending legislation, from my perspective a capitulation to the gun put to their heads would have more seriously impaired faith in the efficacy of unions. To sell out its membership, as OECTA did by legitimizing a process that needlessly violates all good-faith concepts with which I am familiar, would have done far more damage than a steadfast refusal to return to the negotiating table.

And, of course, one thing the public needs to remember in this highly-charged political circus is the fact that a wage-freeze is something that teacher unions were amenable to almost from the beginning.

Just another one of those inconvenient truths, I guess, as Mr. McGuinty urges everyone to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Regg Cohn's Thoughts on Catterpillar Inc.

I don't have too much time this morning, but I highly recommend Martin Regg Cohn's piece, which offers, amongst other things, a contrast between how long-serving Conservative Ontario Premier Bill Davis treated labour, and the current do-nothing philosophies of Dalton McGuinty and Steven Harper:

The former Tory premier of Ontario wasn’t perfect, but he was always plugged in. He took labour seriously, listened closely to business and wooed foreign investors (remember Renault?). He knew how to leverage the power of the premier’s office to stand up for Ontario’s greater interests.

A phone call to Caterpillar’s corporate braintrust would show that Ontario’s premier is no pushover. If that didn’t work, a phone call to Harper — who is still trying to live down the tax breaks he gave the locomotive factory’s former owners a few years ago — might find a receptive ear.

While his suggestions are unlikely to move either McGuinty or Harper, who much prefer to offer platitudes such as "We urge negotiations to continue," and "This is a matter between private interests," or, as of January 1st, grant a further federal corporate tax reduction of 1.5%, no strings attached, we must, as a province and nation, keep current with such situations and urge action by communicating with our elected representatives.