SUMMER | 2018 LABOUR ACTION THE ABUSE OF POWER BEGINS @torontolabour facebook.com/labourcouncil labourcouncil.ca 2 SUMMER | 2018 EDITORIAL THE NEXT FOUR YEARS IN ONTARIO themselves to an agenda that weakens workers’ rights and economic equality. But there were some victories - we can celebrate the election of many dynamic New Democrats to Queen’s Park. The NDP ran on a bold platform of social justice, and the ten new NDP MPP’s in Toronto will join Peter Tabuns as champions in confronting the direction of the new government. It will be essential that they help give voice to resistance and assist in building powerful movements for social justice across the province. A difficult battleground will be the issue of climate change and just transition to a low-carbon future. His It was the wildest election in living memory. The Liberal Party abrupt reversal of cap-and-trade will collapsed, the NDP elected the most MPP’s in a generation, and throw important energy conservation Doug Ford is the new Premier. His message of tax cuts, lower gas investments into turmoil, and eliminate funding for vital mitigation prices, and challenging the privilege of elites hit home, including measures such as energy retrofits with many working families. The Ford campaign cynically of schools and social housing, as refused to provide any concrete indication of how a Conservative well as industrial transition. A Ford government would pay for its many promises. government will mimic the same approach to the environment as the There will be four years of turmoil public services and frontline workers. Harper regime, setting us back years across Ontario, but many people don’t But some of the first acts of the in our efforts to take on this crucial see that yet – they believe they voted government may be popular, so our challenge. to end hallway medicine, lower gas messaging must be accurate. It will be For cities and school boards, the prices and turf overpaid executives, all essential to safeguard democracy in relationship with the provincial while front line jobs will be protected. our public institutions, because a key government is fraught with difficulty. What they don’t realize is how much tactic of the Conservatives and U.S. A central demand of parents and public services and public sector Republicans is to strip accountability education workers is to fix the workers will be under attack to pay from government decision-making broken funding formula and invest in for promised tax giveaways of the process. classroom resources. Municipalities Ford campaign. Or the reality that History shows that each time the are still recovering from the disastrous private sector employers will be given downloading of costs and services by Conservatives take power they drive a free hand to exploit workers, wages the Harris government decades ago. down the standards that working will stagnate and precarious work will Transit workers are concerned about a people have secured. Their rhetoric expand. takeover and privatization of subway We saw how Mike Harris and Rob criticizes the “elites”, but their service. There is no plan to address Ford moved with lightning speed actions inevitably align with the crumbling social housing stock, and to privatize assets and gut workers’ interests of big business. And no no mention of support for social rights. There is no question that this matter how much some moderate services. The wild card for Ontario Conservative regime will operate corporate leaders decry the behaviour is the impact of Trump’s moves on the same way, and that labour and of politicians like Ford or Trump, tariffs. With a potential trade war community activists must be prepared business wants lower corporate looming, industrial workers need a for an immediate fight to defend taxes and most will accommodate plan to defend their jobs. LABOURACTION 3 The labour movement has learned pharmacare, expanded childcare, and Ford about the real impact of the from experience that we must resist more, and show that Ford will hurt decisions his government makes. every attack on working people, on the living standards of most Ontarians Through all this, we have to take time the poor or marginalized, on civil if he tries to reverse those gains. to deepen the political understanding society and on democracy. It is never of activists in every union, including easy to maintain solidarity in the face We must join with all others to reject a new generation of leaders. It won’t of powerful forces that will attempt to the politics of greed and division, divide and conquer. Our leadership building broad coalitions and working be an easy four years, but through will be tested many times. Now is the in both parliamentary and extra- our efforts we continue to strive for time to defend the hard-won progress parliamentary forms of struggle. a better future, fighting for a society we made in recent years – including And we must continuously talk to that provides fairness, good jobs and the minimum wage, Bill 148, partial the working families that voted for dignity for all. The Labour Council will: • Undertake a comprehensive outreach to all affiliates and activists to prepare for the tough struggles ahead • Expand our ability to communicate with union members, diverse communities and the general public about the values of social, economic, racial, gender and climate justice that anchor our labour movement • Build broad coalitions to challenge regressive policies of the Ford government • Defend workers’ rights and the gains in Bill 148 including the $15 Minimum Wage, and urge unions to undertake mass organizing drives among precarious workers • Work to overcome the divisions within the house of labour so that we can build a strong, united union movement as the foundation for the important work we must carry out over the next four years • Continue to call for electoral reform in favour of proportional representation so that the true wishes of the voters are reflected in the legislature. LabourACTION is a publication of the CONNECT + FOLLOW + SHARE Toronto & York Region Labour Council that is published several times a year. Stay connected with Twitter & Facebook Follow @torontolabour Got feedback? Comment on an article? Like facebook.com/labourcouncil Story ideas? Visit labourcouncil.ca for video, articles, Email: [email protected] press releases & more! www.labourcouncil.ca 4 SUMMER | 2018 LABOURACTION 5 When Ontario Services Are Cut, Sliced And Frozen Who Loses? Despite being Canada’s most He also froze all hiring across Ontario’s of privatization. The LCBO is under populous province, Ontario just Public Sector. This means no new attack as Ford actively looks to allow got smaller. Not in population Labour Inspectors who will go out convenience and grocery stores to sell but in services. Newly elected PC to enforce Bill148, crippling the first alcohol. The LCBO brings in $2Billion Premier, Doug Ford is looking progress Ontario has seen in Labour into Ontario’s public money chest each to deliver his election promise of and Employment law in two decades. year – that’s a lot of roads, hospitals, There is no value to a law on paper books in schools and medicine to keep $6.5billion in “efficiencies” by if there is no enforcement. There can our families healthy. Also, let’s not executing some serious cuts to be no enforcement if there are no forget the good jobs with benefits that the public sector and this includes inspectors who go out to hundreds are created because LCBO is owned by our schools. of workplaces to investigate and ask the public. Doug Ford is abolishing the cap questions. What does this mean for Finding $6.5billion of efficiencies and trade program we share with the workers of Ontario, especially by selling what Ontario owns is the Quebec and California, the pricing those battling precarity and employer same as burning the furniture to heat system that put a dollar value on abuse? your home. Do you really want an carbon pollution as a way of reducing Ford’s first priority was getting rid of extra $5 in your wallet, if you child’s emissions. The money is used to fund the 6 million dollar man, the CEO of education is crumbling, your parents much needed infrastructure work that Hydro One, Mayo Schmidt. They got can’t pay for medication, you can’t both addressed climate action while him to retire with a one-time payment afford to update your furnace and your upgrading quality of life for thousands of $400,000 payout in lieu of post- neighbours are losing their jobs? It’s an of Ontarians. Scrapping the program retirement benefits. But no mention inconvenient question, but it’s our job will cut billions needed to repair the of the $10million Mr. Schmidt will to ask! crumbling schools, fix social housing receive in stock options after retiring! and build transit. We are already seeing growing threats A Review by Gordon Campbell? You gotta be kidding! Doug Ford swears he’s going to $1.5 billion surplus – a figure later After the new roof came in at $563 figure out what’s going on with confirmed by BC’s auditor general. But million, Campbell’s government tried Ontario’s finances. So, who better after the election, Campbell appointed to claim their original estimate of $100 to lead the investigation than a a handpicked panel of BC Liberal million was not a real estimate. donors to investigate the province’s man who has experience fudging And when Campbell tried to build a finances and later falsely claimed BC new conference centre in Vancouver, numbers for his own political was facing a $5 billion deficit, using gain? Ford appointed former BC the final price ballooned from $495 it to discredit the former government million to $883 million – nearly $400 Premier Gordon Campbell to and justify nearly a billion dollars in million more than it was supposed to lead an independent inquiry into corporate tax cuts.