No Justice, No Peace: The 1996 OPSEU Strike against the Harris Government in Ontario 9780773567900

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No Justice, No Peace The 1996 OPSEU Strike against the Harris Government in Ontario11

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) was an early target of Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolutionaries, neoconservatives on a mission to shrink the social safety net, radically reduce social programs, and subvert Ontario's collective-bargaining regimes. In No Justice, No Peace David Rapaport uses details, insights, and anecdotes from over 150 interviews - with picket line captains, local executives, union leaders, journalists, mediators, and union and management negotiators, among others - to provide an insider's view of the strike and its political and economic contexts, often told in the strikers' own voices. Vice-president from 1991 to 1997 of OPSEU'S huge Region 5, covering Toronto, Rapaport describes how the election of the Harris government and the early Common Sense Revolution cutbacks led to a large opposition movement, the labour/social justice coalition, the days of action, and the provincewide OPSEU strike. No Justice, No Peace traces the politics involved, from ideology and belief in free trade to the downsizing of public and private enterprises, from the restructuring and privatization of the public sector to collective bargaining between OPSEU and the Ontario government, and, finally, to the strike vote and the picket line. DAVID RAPAPORT is president of OPSEU local 503 and a member of the executive of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. He works for the Ontario Public Service as a computer systems analyst for the Ministry of Education and Training.

Cartoon by Brian Gable. Reprinted with permission from the Globe and Mail.

No Justice, No Peace The 1996 OPSEU Strike against the Harris Government in Ontario DAVID RAPAPORT

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1999 ISBN 0-7735-1858-4 (cloth) ISBN 0-7735-1865-7 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 1999 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for its activities. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Rapaport, David, 1947No justice, no peace: the 1996 OPSEU strike against the Harris government: in Ontario Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1858-4 (bound) ISBN 0-7735-1865-7 (pbk.) I. Civil Service Strike, Ontario, 1996. 2. Ontario-Politics and government-1995- I. Title. HD8oo4.z.C3R36 1999 331.892,'8135263'90713 C99-900156-6

Unless otherwise indicated, photographs are by David Hartman and published courtesy of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. "No Justice, No Peace" logo reproduced courtesy of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, illustration by Candace Lourdes. Set by True to Type in 10/12 Sabon

In memory of my parents, Alexander and Dorothy Rapaport

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Contents

Abbreviations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Illustrations xiii Introduction: Civil Servants Demonstrate, and the OPP riots 3 PART O N E

BACKGROUND

1 OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

17

2 The World Changes for Ontario 29 3 The World Changes for Civil Servants PART T W O

41

THE STRIKE EMERGES

4 Opposition to the Harris Government

53

5 Collective Bargaining until the Strike 63 6 OPSEU Builds for the Strike PART T H R E E

83

OPSEU ON STRIKE

7 OPSEU Goes on Strike 8 The Politics of Picketing

107 117

9 The Picket Line Community 10 The Wider Community

137

161

11 Essential Services: A Limited Strike

170

Vlll

CONTENTS

12 Legal Issues

180

13 Collective Bargaining during the Strike 189 14 The Strike Ends

201

APPENDICES A The Strike Vocabulary

211

B A Week-by-Week Chronology of the Strike c OPSEU Strike: Financial Statistics

213

221

D Results of the Three OPSEU Polls of the Membership E List of People Interviewed

222

225

Notes 231 Bibliography 241 Index

245

TABLES 1 OPS Bargaining Unit (OPSEU): Occupational and Salary Data as of February 1996 65 2 The Strike Vote, 15-17 February 1996: Results from the Vote on the Employer's "Best Offer" 103

Abbreviations

AMAPCEO

Association of Management, Administrative, and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario ATU Amalgamated Transit Union BCGEU British Columbia Government Employees' Union BPS Broader Public Sector CAAT College of Applied Arts and Technology CAW Canadian Auto Workers CCBA Colleges Collective Bargaining Act CECBA Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act CEP Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union CLC Canadian Labour Congress CMU Crowd Management Unit (OPP riot squad) COLA cost-of-living allowance CSAO Civil Service Association of Ontario CSR Common Sense Revolution CUPE Canadian Union of Public Employees CUPW Canadian Union of Postal Workers EBM Executive Board member ERC Employer (Employee) Relations Committee FFACT Friends and Family against the Closure of Thistletown FTE full-time equivalent GSB Grievance Settlement Board HERE Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union HLDAA Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act IAP Internal Administration Project IHC Institutional and Health Care (bargaining unit) IR industrial relations JCC joint central committee (Social Contract cost savings) JOG job offer guarantee

X

ABBREVIATIONS

LEC LIUNA MBS MNR MNSJ MPP MTO NAC NAFTA NCC NDP NUPGE OAG OCAP OCBTU OCSJ OCWA OECTA OFL OGPS OHIP OLRA OLRB ONA OPEIU OPP OPS OPSEU OSSTF OTAB PC PEGO PNA PSAC QSMHC RWDSU SACG SONG TTC UFCW USWA VEO

local executive committee (local steward body) Labourers International Union of North America Management Board Secretariat Ministry of Natural Resources Metro Network for Social Justice member of the provincial parliament Ministry of Transportation of Ontario National Action Committee on the Status of Women North American Free Trade Agreement National Citizen's Coalition New Democratic Party National Union of Public and General Employees Office Administration Group (largest OPS bargaining unit) Ontario Coalition against Poverty Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Ontario Coalition for Social Justice Ontario Clean Water Agency Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association Ontario Federation of Labour Ontario Government Protection Services Ontario Health Insurance Plan Ontario Labour Relations Act Ontario Labour Relations Board Ontario Nurses' Association Office and Professional Employees International Union Ontario Provincial Police Ontario Public Service Ontario Public Service Employees Union Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation Ontario Training and Adjustment Board Progressive Conservative Professional Engineers of the Government of Ontario psychiatric nursing assistant Public Service Alliance of Canada Queen Street Mental Health Centre Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union Service Area Coordinating Group Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild Toronto Transit Commission United Food and Commercial Workers United Steelworkers of America voluntary exit option

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the assistance and encouragement of many people both inside and outside the labour movement. I took a leave of absence from work between October 1997 and March 1998 in order to research and write the book, and during that time I interviewed 165 people, most of whom were OPSEU activists and picketers. I wish I could have interviewed the rest of the 30,000 OPSEU picketers, but that was not possible. The research and writing of the first draft was a one-man band, so my resources were limited. I managed to get around Ontario thanks to the good will and kindness of many people, especially Ron Elliot of London, Norma Taylor in Gananoque, Gavin Anderson of Kingston, Bill Kuehnbaum of Sudbury, Will Presley of North Bay, Mike Oliver of Cornwall, Bev Toivonen of Peterborough, and Jim Turk and Dave Calvert of Ottawa. Bruce Kidd lent me his office at the University of Toronto for interviewing. For newspaper clippings I wish to thank Marilyn Miller and Sandy Cifani from local 580 in Toronto and Paul Bilodeau from OPSEU, Katie FitzRandolph provided me with complete sets of Picket Lines and other OPSEU publications; Mary Diamond from my local provided me with videotapes of television news during the strike; and Rachel Rapaport tracked down many articles for my research. John O'Brien lent me his six huge binders of notes from his long experience as chair of the OPSEU bargaining team. There are many people who read either the entire manuscript or part of it and made useful and critical comments. My biggest thanks in this regard go to Paul Michaud, an old and dear friend, who dutifully read each chapter as I wrote it. I also thank Bob Hebdon and Andre Bekerman for reading and commenting on the first five chapters, Andre Bekermen and Brian Mayes for his comments on the chapters on collective bargaining, Craig Heron for the chapter on labour history, Carolyn

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Egan for the chapters on the Common Sense Revolution and the growth of the opposition, Mel Watkins for his advice on Canadian politics and political economy, and Diane Bull for her help on essential services. John Huot and Maureen Wall gave me some useful hints at the beginning of my research, and Pamela Lawrence gave me some helpful writing hints, while John MacLennan, Don Eady, Gary Shaul, and Paul Bilodeau read the entire manuscript, offering helpful comments. Heather Rapaport was of great assistance in reading the proofs. My special thanks go to my union, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, for pulling off this momentous event and for providing me with the illustrations. I particularly wish to thank Steve Daynes, OPSEU'S graphic designer extraordinaire, for the time he spent helping me acquire photos. I also wish to thank Agatha McPhee for all the financial information she supplied. Don Eady gave me copies of the legal briefs and awards he accumulated as coordinator of OPSEU'S legal battles during the strike, and I thank both him and Judith McCormack for their much-needed explanations of the law, always a mystery to the non-lawyer. Frank Rooney provided me with copies of the three polls and took the time to explain them, and Heather Gavin and Marcia Gillespie patiently explained pensions to me. For Richard Adam's play and Ian Henderson's satirical piece I am especially grateful. Many thanks also to Stephen Giles, who lent me documents pertaining to his beating by the OPP riot squad. Stephen Handelman gave me the idea as well as the inspiration to embark on this venture in December 1996. I presented a preliminary version as a paper to the Society for Socialist Studies at the Learned Societies' conference in St John's, Newfoundland, in June 1997. The society received financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Humanities and Social Science Federation of Canada. I thank Jesse Vorst for the opportunity to present the paper. Howie Chodos published the article in the society's bulletin in early 1998. I wish to thank Bernice and Bill Schrank for their hospitality in St John's. I want to say a very special thanks to Ester Reiter, who encouraged me and contributed in so many ways - connected me with the publisher, read over many of the chapters, and made numerous editorial and conceptual suggestions. The folks at McGill-Queen's University Press were more than wonderful, especially Philip Cercone, who had never known me or heard of me but encouraged me all along. My editor, Carlotta Lemieux, remarkably transformed my manuscript into what you see before you. Finally, my true appreciation goes to the thousands of OPSEU members who stood on their picket lines between 26 February and 31 March 1996. There would have been no book to write, no story to tell, and no facts to research without their bravery.

Santa Claus joins co-chairs Elaine Ellis from OPSEU and Rick Witherspoon from the CAW to celebrate the London Day of Action, 11 December 1995

Will Presley, vice-president of OPSEU Region 6, being arrested and removed from the constituency office of Mike Harris, 26 January 1996. Courtesy of the North Bay Nugget photvo by Dennis DuBois

York University social science professor Ester Reiter being ejected from the galleries at Queen's Park on the night that Bill 26 was passed, 29 January 1996. Courtesy of the Toronto Sun; photo by Stan Behal

Opening of the Queen's Park strike headquarters, 29 January 1996; left to right: Marilou Martin, Jean-Claude Parrot, the author, and Linda Torney

Left to right: Pam Doig, Ed Brennan, Audrey Williams, Leslynne Jones, Derek Miller, and Paul Bilodeau toast the strike vote, 18 February 1996

Katie FitzRandolph, Walter Belyea, and Andy Todd with OPSEU fax reporting on the No vote, 18 February 1996

OPSEU president Leah Casselman addresses Hamilton Day of Action, Z4 February 1996

OPSEU leads the International Women's Day march in Toronto, 9 March 1996

Pat Churchill looking after Stephen Giles after he was whacked by the OPP riot squad, 18 March 1996

Stephen Giles being placed in an ambulance

OPP riot squad outside the Frost Building on 18 March, about 1 PM

The OPSEU bargaining team announces acceptance of the deal, 29 March 1996; left to right: Elizabeth Huitema, Dennis Collom, Andre Bekerman, John O'Brien, Leah Casselman, Andy Todd, Manu Jajal

No Justice, No Peace

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INTRODUCTION

Civil Servants Demonstrate, and the OPP Riots The OPP'S riot squad charged into a group of picketers trying to clear the way into the government buildings. Nine picketers were knocked down and two were injured. Ben Chin, CITY-TV news, 18 March 1996 When historians look back on March 18, 1996, they'll write about a day in Ontario's political history like none other. Riot police wielding billy clubs, anger, confrontation, violence. It was all there outside the legislature. Suhana Meharchand, CBC evening news, 18 March 1996

The memory of an event is forged by where you stood at the time. This explains why any event, especially a politically charged one, has many interpretations. In 1995-96 civil servants in Ontario - myself included - were besieged by our employer, the Government of Ontario. Our jobs and rights were threatened, so we turned to our union, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) to defend us. We had the strike weapon for the first time and we used it. The response was forceful and violent. We stayed out for five weeks. What follows is one striker's memory of that whole period. It was an eventful period, encompassing the end of the NDP government of Bob Rae, the election of Mike Harris as premier of Ontario, the Common Sense Revolution, the all-night parliamentary sit-in by MPP Alvin Curling, the London Day of Action and the Hamilton Days of Action, the OPSEU strike, and especially the Queen's Park riot of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on 18 March 1996. Since the Queen's Park riot stands out as the symbol of the strike, I begin with an account of that day. Stephen Giles had been a probation officer with the Ministry of the

4

INTRODUCTION

Solicitor General and Correctional Services since 1990. On 18 March 1996 his union, OPSEU, was beginning the fourth week of its provincewide strike against the government of Mike Harris. The provincial legislature was scheduled to reconvene that afternoon for the opening of its spring session, and at 7:30 AM Giles arrived at the east door of the Legislative Building, where he met Rosemary Elstone, the president of his local. Strikers and their supporters were still gathering. The mood was upbeat and spirits were good. "We were happy to see all these people together," remembers Giles. "Our local has fourteen locations scattered across Metro Toronto, and a lot of them had come." Elstone asked Giles to join the pickets on Wellesley Street, at the Whitney Block. "We picketed near the parking ramp," Giles recalled. "I looked to be in the sun. There were about five of us from the local, and more picketers kept coming. Most of us were probation officers." Giles then moved to the Ferguson Building, just east of the Whitney Block. Since the door was locked, it was a symbolic picket. Giles was still picketing there at 10 AM when the action started: All of a sudden, five uniformed Ontario government security guards ran out of the building. They ran right past us. From the street, another group of about ten security guards and nonuniformed police, in a circular formation, pushed their way right past us. I was knocked off balance. We were shocked. We didn't know what had happened. We found out later that the group from the street included Mike Harris. After that, I made the grievous mistake of going into the sunshine by the parking ramp between the Whitney and the Ferguson. I was there for about fifteen minutes. The OPP Crowd Management Unit [the riot squad], about fifty of them, ran up the parking ramp, beating their shields, wearing star trooper style of dress. But they came only halfway up the ramp and then went back down again. They had botched up the communication between the OPP and the Metro police - the OPP underground had thought that the police van with the MPPS was arriving. This would have been around 11:20. When they left, it elevated everybody's spirits.1

The police van with a small group of MPPS, which was driving to the parking ramp, had misread the first approach from the OPP, but the second time they coordinated communications with the group of OPP who were waiting in the underground parking lot. When all was set, the OPP riot squad again stormed out of the parking lot to create a corridor for the arriving MPPS. But the van could not get through, because somebody had forgotten to remove the chain blocking the entry to the parking lot.

Civil Servants Demonstrate

5

Giles was right by the chain: "The crowd grew to around fifty picketers. I saw the police van stop and then leave. I was wondering if it would come back. Next I heard the beating of the batons against the shields. I turned round and saw the CMU coming over the chain which they had put there. They were supposed to take it down, but they didn't." The normal practice is for the CMU to go into a wedge formation. The wedge is designed to push protesters off to the side and clear a corridor. Giles works for the same ministry as the OPP - the Solicitor General and Correctional Services - and he knew all about the wedge: I saw them practise the wedge when I was working in Brampton. I didn't have time to get out of the way. I waited to get bounced to the side. But that didn't happen. Their wedge fell apart as they came over the chain. People were getting bounced all over the place by the shields. I got bounced five or six times by the shields. I'm staggering at this point, and I run into a shoulder of one of the OPP officers. I get accused of being in the inner perimeter. It's only because they forced me there. "I'll be out of this soon," I thought, and that was when I was knocked on the head. I collapsed immediately. From the video, I see I'm hit in the ribs and then another officer hits me with the shield. To this day I don't remember. From then on I am out. From the video, I see the MPP'S tripping over me. One falls to the ground over me.

Patricia Churchill had been a computer operator for the registrar general for eighteen years, and she too was caught in the riot: Nobody was blocking. It was a very peaceful picket line. Stephen and I were just singing with the Rank and File Band. The mood was upbeat. We never knew what happened. They just charged. It was around 11:30. They didn't warn us. The riot squad came out pounding their shields. Then they ran back. Then suddenly they charged. There was a chain which they had put up and they jumped over it. They started banging with their sticks. I ducked down and because Stephen was taller he got hit. After he fell, I lay over the top of him. I saw the blood. People started jumping over Stephen ... Feet were jumping over us.

David Harris, who teaches grade 4 in Scarborough, had come to Queen's Park that day with his sixteen-year-old son, Daniel, to support the OPSEU strikers. He was standing at the Ferguson Block when the security guards forced their way through to escort Mike Harris into the Queen's Park complex: "They stormed right past us. I was knocked over and kicked in the thigh." David decided to take his son to a safer place, and on his way back he joined the picketers at the Whitney Block. He was there when the riot squad came up the ramp the second

6

INTRODUCTION

time: "I got whacked twice on my knee. I fell to the floor. About five or six picketers carried me away, and I sat under a tree until an ambulance drove me away. A Metro Police sergeant talked to me while I waited there. He was upset with what had happened." Rick Spadafora, who works for the Ontario government as a mail clerk, also was struck by OPP that morning in front of the Whitney Block: "I saw what happened to Stephen and I saw the MPPS walk over his body. As the cops were swinging their batons I put my arm up to protect myself. I was struck on the finger and my hand was fractured in a few places. As the riot squad was going back down the ramp, I told them that they had no right to do what they did. One stuck a baton between his legs and made an obscene gesture at me." IT WAS NOT B U S I N E S S AS U S U A L

The Harris government never thought it would have to deal with a three-week civil service strike with no end in sight. Not only was the strike an unwelcome distraction, but it brought the government to a standstill. Nevertheless, Mike Harris had planned to open the spring session on 18 March with a "business as usual" approach. It proved to be anything but business as usual. When I arrived at Queen's Park at 7 AM, the picket lines were already growing, and the OPSEU flatbed was making its way onto the south lawn of the Legislative Building for the 12:30 rally. The rally was being co-sponsored by the Metro Network for Social Justice and the Toronto Labour Council. Picket captains were milling around, the marshals wearing orange crossing-guard vests. Gary Shaul, Queen's Park picket coordinator, was standing in front of the Frost Building and directing strikers arriving on out-of-town buses (approximately fifty buses arrived from out-of-town locations). Meanwhile, Gavin Leeb, a strike organizer, was coordinating the picket marshals. Thousands of striking civil servants converged on Toronto that day from all over the province - from Oshawa, North Bay, Sudbury, London, Windsor, Hamilton, Kingston, Ottawa, and Cornwall. They had come to greet their employers, the Tory members of the provincial parliament. Queen's Park was a celebration of opposition that morning. There were thousands of us - autoworkers, teachers, community activists, steelworkers, students, and OPSEU strikers. At the west door of the Legislative Building was a chorus singing labour songs. Steelworkers had occupied the tunnel connecting the government buildings to the Queen's Park subway station, and pickets had taken up their positions at the doors of all the government buildings. To feed the folk, the soup truck from the United Food and Commercial Workers was making its

Civil Servants Demonstrate 7 rounds. Meanwhile, the Rank and File Band, sponsored by the Canadian Auto Workers, drove around on a flatbed, playing to the numerous picket lines before ending up on the south lawn of the legislature, where the OPSEU Region 3 chanters were leading the crowd in songs and chants. About five thousand striking civil servants had come to Queen's Park that day with a simple message to the employer: "No business as usual until the strike is settled." The response was billy clubs and pepper spray from the Ontario Provincial Police. The OPP riot squad first appeared at 9:30 AM at the Frost Building South to escort MPPS into the building. Sal Santos, a financial officer with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who was picketing there, could not believe his eyes: "A bunch of armed goons stormed out of the doors and brought in Palladini and other MPPS. I was astounded." Then, at 11:30, the OPP riot squad stormed out of the parking lot at the Whitney Block. OPSEU was concerned about violence. Gavin Leeb told me, "After we heard about the Whitney Block we were worried about more violence. We spoke to the Metro police about using union security to get MPPS past the picket line. They were supposed to speak to the OPP. But they never got back to us." It was around noon when I heard about Stephen Giles. I immediately went over to the Whitney Block, but Giles was already gone. The picketers there were in a state of shock - and very angry. About half an hour later, I joined the rally on the south lawn of the legislature. Paula Fletcher and George Hewison of the Rank and File Band were singing "We Won't Back Down," and people seemed to be having a good time. But word was getting out about Giles. By 12:30 the demonstration was underway, chaired by Debbie Douglas of the Metro Network for Social Justice. Like Stephen George of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the thousands of people at the rally did not realize what was about to happen at the Frost Building across the road. "I missed history," George said later. "It was going on right across the street." I was alerted by a call from Gary Shaul on my cellular phone. He told me to get over to the Frost Block; something was up. I went over immediately and found hundreds of angry picketers. They had heard about Giles. Suddenly the doors of the Frost Building barged open and about fifty members of the riot squad stormed out. They were dressed to intimidate. Looking like star warriors, with samurai shields and faceless masks, they waved batons and pepper-sprayed the crowd. This time the wedge worked - practice never hurts, and there was no chain to block them - and they successfully created a corridor for Tory MPPS through hundreds of pickets. But we watched in horror as we were pushed aside. Those images made the news that night.

8

INTRODUCTION R E A C T I O N TO THE OPP RIOT

Richard Adams aptly described the symbolism of the Giles beating when he said, "The limited achievement of that unnecessary force seems to exemplify what is totally acceptable to this government in its eagerness to retain power and control. For me, the deployment of riot police was a dreadful symbol indicating that government authority rests on brute strength, not on popular will. When I saw riot batons being whirled and people stumbling as they were driven backwards by police holding shields, I was sickened. At that moment I felt the province was suffering from a violent convulsion induced by a government which was deliberately fostering conflict." This was not the first time the OPP had been accused of taking sides in a political dispute during the brief Harris mandate. In September 1995 the provincial police had shot and killed native activist Dudley George, who had been involved in the occupation at Ipperwash Provincial Park, in southwestern Ontario, over a land dispute; the Harris government was later accused of direct involvement. Regarding the OPSEU rally, Tom Walkom, the Queen's Park columnist for the Toronto Star, commented, "I don't know if somebody in the premier's office called somebody in the OPP, wink and a nudge, but the OPP gets the picture. They don't have to be told. They know where to go and in this case they probably made a mistake. People in the police world refer to the OPP as the Ontario Political Police. It used to be sent up to break strikes in northern Ontario." The Queen's Park OPP riot had a profound impact on OPSEU strikers right across the province. Noreen Angus, a dispatcher for the Ontario Provincial Police in Sault Ste Marie (who was a member of the union's Executive Board at the time of the strike), remembers thinking, "I wish it was my head bashed in. Your officers did this to me." Ruth Bergman, a twenty-year employee with the Ministry of Health in Kenora, was equally appalled: "I still remember the newspaper pictures of OPP officers stepping over the body of Stephen Giles." Mitch Miller, an information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Dryden, said, "After March i8th, strikers were convinced that they were doing the right thing." The images of 18 March became the lasting images of the strike. Walkom has pointed out that the riot was not in fact a metaphor for how Dave Johnson handled the strike: "He handled it much more subtly and cleverly. He made some concessions. He negotiated. But what people will remember is the riot squad. There's a justice to that because it's in fact closer to the views of Harris ... The riot squad is a very clear picture of what Harris is about." Walkom was right. The blow-ups on 18 March, the forceful behav-

Civil Servants Demonstrate 9 iour of striking civil servants, and the violent response of the Ontario Provincial Police are the lasting images. And the strike had set the stage for this. In retrospect, it all makes sense - the anger of an Ontario reacting to a reactionary reordering of society, done in a bully fashion, with no real mandate.2 The Common Sense Revolution had created the opposition - it had created the anger and militancy - and the OPSEU strike had grown in the belly of the opposition. Too much was being changed too fast. On the following Monday, 2.5 March, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Toronto Labour Council organized a march and demonstration to the office of the solicitor general, Bob Runciman. The march started with a "contemptuous silence" around Queen's Park.3 Runciman was the minister responsible for the OPP, and we asked for his resignation. We were not the only ones critical of the OPP'S behaviour. Bill Howes of the Toronto Labour Council, who was responsible for marshalling and security, had met with Metropolitan Toronto Police at seven that morning: They were openly critical of the OPP the week before. That surprised me. The Metro police had a better record of dealing with strikes, better than the OPP. They avoided violence and confrontation during the OPSEU strike. The OPP has a record of violence on picket lines. You can trace its origins to the strike at General Motors in Oshawa in 1937. It was established by Premier Mitchell Hepburn to intimidate the strikers. They were referred to as "the sons of Mitches." They haven't lost that. They are regarded in the labour movement as a political force. By contrast, the Metro police has a labour liaison group. They take a different approach.

Sergeant Jim Muscat was with the industrial liaison section of the Community Policing Support Unit, Metropolitan Toronto Police, during the OPSEU strike and was in charge of monitoring the strike in Toronto. "We train to remain neutral and impartial," he said. "We have a policy of not forming wedges and opening up picket lines." The different styles in which the two police forces handled strikes came out in the open on 19 March, when Paul Walter, president of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association, publicly condemned the behaviour of the OPP riot squad. He recalled that when talking to OPP officers before the eighteenth, they had been bragging about their "whack 'em and stack 'em" jargon.4 The strike ended on 31 March, five weeks after it began and two weeks after the Queen's Park riot. It was the riot, in fact, that brought an end to the strike, for Harris could see all too clearly that the affair was not helping Ontario's image - or his government.

10

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW

This study examines the background of the OPSEU strike and the events leading up to it. It is also a description of the five-week strike itself. In essence, it is a rather long response to the question, How did a group of reasonably placid civil servants and their "protected by legislation" union, which had a long history of arbitration-style collective bargaining, create and sustain a strike that lasted so long and stood up to an aggressive Harris government? Nobody I interviewed questioned the importance or impact of the strike. It was oppositional and it was militant. It remains one of the few provincewide, sustained opposition acts not only against Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution but also against the political forces that he fronts. To understand the drama of the strike, it is necessary to appreciate just why it was so significant. I use the first six chapters to describe its background and the many contexts of the strike. I take a look at the two main actors, OPSEU and the Ontario government, and examine some recent political history in Ontario: the waning of social democracy, the arrival of neoconservatism, and the development of a very deep opposition to neoconservatism in a very short time.5 I also examine how the macropolitics have translated into new realities for civil servants as well as for OPSEU. Provincial civil servants were at the centre of a historic drama, at the core of class politics. It took a while for many of them to figure that out, and some never did. The book begins with a discussion of OPSEU'S acquisition of the right to strike. This is an interesting story and one in which I personally played a role. Many activists in OPSEU were against receiving the right to strike from the NDP government in 1994.6 Rather than dismissing this opposition, I spend some time explaining its motives, though I still disagree with those motives. Before the strike, it was widely believed that OPSEU was incapable of either getting a strike vote or pulling off a strike. It was unthinkable that OPSEU or its members would stand up to Harris. This was not a far-fetched belief. The first chapter explains why. The strike occurred for a variety of complex political reasons. At its broadest level, it was a reaction to the politics of the Common Sense Revolution and the international neoconservative political crusade. This crusade compels workers to expect less - less compensation, less job security, less pension, less social safety net, less everything. Harris had a blueprint to reform Ontario in this image. Clearly, the Common Sense Revolution did not bode well for workers and their communities; it was about reversing the great postwar compromise of distributing some income and some wealth downward, mainly through collective

Civil Servants Demonstrate 11 bargaining and social programs. From Mike Harris's point of view, the ten-year Liberal and New Democratic period between 1985 and 1995 had delayed Ontario's entry into the neoconservative fold, found in the United States and some Canadian provinces, particularly Alberta. The second chapter of the book is about the politics of the Common Sense Revolution. Unionized public-sector workers were in the firing range. Neoconservatism is about lower wages, weakened unions, a smaller and a more privatized public sector, and weaker labour legislation. The neoconservative plan did not look good for civil servants. The realities started to unfold for us in the fall and winter of 1995. The third chapter is about the effects of the Common Sense Revolution on the Ontario Public Service and its workforce, showing how it played an integral part in building for the strike. The Common Sense Revolution set the context of the showdown between employer and union. There was little ambiguity. We all knew what Mike Harris wanted to do to us, and this made organizing for the strike that much simpler. The fourth chapter is about the development of the opposition to the Harris government in the eight months before the strike. The opposition grew very rapidly, and the strike was one of its most militant and forceful expressions. The strike lived inside the opposition; but during those five weeks, the opposition lived inside the strike. The fifth chapter is about the collective bargaining before the strike. It describes the specifics of bargaining and how the government tried to use the bargaining table to set the stage for a very fast and cheap downsize of the public sector. The sixth chapter is a description of OPSEU'S mobilization: preparing the membership for a strike vote and ultimately a strike. This book is an oral history. Wherever possible, I use the voices of the strikers themselves to describe the strike as well as its contexts, politics, and experiences. The flow of the book follows the trickling down of the very broad politics of neoconservatism and the resistance to it, tracing its course to the collective bargaining between the Ontario government and its employees, to the reaction of their union, and finally to the strike vote and picket lines. The oral history, found mostly in the third part of the book, is a description by and of people who were fighting for their jobs and rights. But the OPSEU strike also had a political current, because the strikers were not only fighting for themselves; they were fighting for their communities and for a certain idea of Ontario, an idea that was at loggerheads with the Common Sense Revolution. The strike was their weapon, and they used it well. What factors created this showdown? They are complex and operate at different levels. At the abstract level, the dispute was between

12,

INTRODUCTION

two contending political views - the conservative Common Sense Revolution of the Harris government and the social democratic beliefs of the labour movement. At an everyday level, the dispute was about souring labour relations between a very large organization and its employees. And at its most practical level, the strike was about saving one's job or securing a better severance package. The book examines all three levels. From my point of view, the strike was a miracle. Until the strike vote, I was basically a nonbeliever, though I kept this to myself. I didn't totally disbelieve, but I certainly had doubts. Yet I never let my doubts interfere with my organizing, and on the morning of Saturday, 17 February, the third and final day of the strike vote, I spoke in a forum at Toronto City Hall that was sponsored by the Labour Council. Linda Torney, president of the Labour Council, had invited me to speak about the OPSEU strike vote, which was on everybody's mind. I told the hundred or so people in the audience that OPSEU was going to win the strike vote and, if necessary, would go on strike. The audience was supportive and applauded loudly. But I wasn't really convinced. As it turned out, we finished the strike vote on that Saturday afternoon, counted the vote the next day, and a week later we were on strike. Three weeks after that, the OPP riot squad resorted to violence at Queen's Park to fight off striking civil servants. It was quite a journey. It was also nice to be wrong. OPSEU'S history in the Ontario Public Service is not a militant history. We had one foot in the civil service and the other in the labour movement, and we believed in "the deal" - we believed that saner heads, even with different interests, would prevail and that they would find the deal. Some recent internal attempts to move OPSEU from a "service" footing to a more "organize/mobilize" footing had always had to cope with these conservatizing influences. Ironically, Mike Harris proved to be our best organizer. Harris was always clear about his intentions for us; he never denied them or tried to hide them. With this in hand, we convinced the membership to side with us in the strike vote and in the strike. In the end, the membership became the strike. Each striker had a story to tell. This book gives them voice. In my research for the book, I travelled across the province to talk to 12,5 civil servants who had helped organize the strike and had sustained it for those five very cold weeks in February and March 1996.1 interviewed sixteen union staff who had worked on public relations, negotiations, and strike mobilization. I also talked with members of the OPSEU negotiating committee and with much of the political leadership of the union at the time of the strike. I spoke with journalists,

Civil Servants Demonstrate 13 police, senior civil servants, lawyers, politicians, and members of the government negotiating team. Since April 1984, I have been employed by the Ontario Public Service as a systems analyst. I have worked for the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Education and Training. I was a member of the union executive between 1991 and 1997. During the strike, I was the vice-president of OPSEU for the Toronto region, a position that has given me a definite vantage point from which to write this book. Many of the events described in the following pages are ones that I attended, spoke at, or helped organize. Of the 165 people I interviewed all told, the majority were local presidents or picket-line captains who had worked diligently to make the strike a reality in their location. Between early December 1995 and 31 March 1996, I had seen OPSEU do everything right. I was part of a labour machine that did everything it had to do and did it well. From mobilizing and delivering for the London Day of Action on 11 December to mobilizing for the strike vote between early January and the middle of February, to winning the strike vote on 18 February, to going on strike on 2.6 February, and then conducting a determined and militant strike for five weeks, I was there for the whole show. This book is a document of the events of that period. It is a tribute to the tens of thousands of women and men who captured the politics of the moment, figured out their class interests, took control, fought the good fight, and won. This is their story. I hope I have done it justice.

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PART ONE

Background

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CHAPTER 1

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

I opposed the right to strike. But in retrospect I have to wonder what would have happened to us without the right to strike. Harris would have eaten us alive. Brian Lowry, local 406, Ottawa

It took decades for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) to acquire the right to strike. The history of this achievement is an essential part of this study because without the right to strike, there would have been no 1996 strike. OPSEU is divided into three sectors, the largest of which is the Ontario Public Service (OPS). At the time of the strike there were approximately 67,000 OPS members, most of whom worked directly for a ministry of the Ontario government. Each ministry has a broad scope, responsible for a particular field, industry, or service, and each is a subset of what has become known as the public sector in Ontario. A ministry directs, funds, regulates, and develops its provincial "area." Ministries are responsible for agriculture, education, health, corrections, welfare, taxation, justice, law enforcement, commercial and environmental regulation, economic development, natural resources, urban affairs, social services, labour rights and standards, culture, and transportation. "Excluding the Crown agency sector, the macro organization of the Ontario government consists of eighteen line ministries or offices and six central agencies ... The line ministries serve Ontario's residents directly in such areas as health, education, and correctional services. Central agencies have governmentwide mandates and their clients are internal. Although they account for a small proportion of classified employees, central agencies exercise substantial authority and influence in government decision-making processes."1 Among its many functions, the OPS transfers centrally collected money to service-delivery agencies in the broader public sector.1 Since

l8

BACKGROUND

the 19708, the Ontario government has been divesting service delivery to external agencies so that fewer services are performed centrally. The other two sectors of OPSEU are the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT) and the Broader Public Sector (EPS). In early 1996 there were approximately 15,000 members in the CAAT sector, which consists of two bargaining units - academic and support. The EPS has about 25,000 members in about 450 bargaining units; they work in transferpayment operations such as hospitals, social service agencies, ambulance services, school boards, universities, day-care centres, and cultural institutions. In both the EPS and the colleges, the work is closer to the actual public service. In fact, the work itself frequently is the public service. Unlike the OPS, the colleges and the vast majority of members in the EPS sector have long had the right to strike, and the strike weapon has been exercised many times by OPSEU in these two sectors. The main exception is the medical sector. In Ontario, its collective bargaining is governed by the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, which prohibits strikes and lockouts in hospitals. All references to OPSEU in this book are about the Ontario Public Service, not the other two sectors. THE WELCOME MAT FOR UNIONS

A union changes the relationship between employer and employees. Without a union, the employer holds all the cards in labour relations: hires, fires, organizes work, disciplines, promotes, sets wages, and establishes working conditions. A union is a challenge to the employerimposed order at work. It provides employees with the chance to organize for their rights as well as to negotiate contracts that stipulate compensation, benefits, and conditions of work. A union brings a form of politics and bargaining within the context of "being at work." In our times, there are legal protections for unions and their representatives, and for the right to organize. The current status of unions was not achieved without a struggle. In the 19408 the economy was growing and workers wanted a bigger share in it. In what labour historians call the postwar compromise, a new industrial relations system arose in Canada. Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz have described that time: "In 1943, one out of every three trade union members was engaged in strike action. Union membership, just as significantly, grew rapidly, doubling between 1940 and 1944. The temporary industrial relations reform initiated by Privy Council Order 1003 became 'permanent' peacetime legislation in 1948, largely because of this sustained militancy."3 Craig Heron gives further details of this militancy: "In the peak year, 1946, strikers shut down the British

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

19

Columbia logging industry, the Ontario rubber industry, the central Canadian ports, the Southam newspaper chain, the country's steel industry, and dozens of mass-production plants, in the biggest strike wave Canada had ever seen ... The new industrial regime that had emerged from this decade of intense conflict was thus enshrined in law and would last for the next three decades." The law referred to was the federal Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act of 1948, which established a new system of labour relations in Canada.4 Along with governments and employers, unions became the third side of the new industrial relations order. Under this arrangement, unions negotiate working conditions and compensation for their members, and collective agreements are upheld by law.5 Governments and employers prefer this system to the labour chaos of the 19405. Compromises have been made by both sides. Employers check off union dues from workers' paycheques and forward the money to the union; unions recognize that employers have the right to manage the enterprise (so-called management rights). In exchange, unions get the legal right to negotiate and police collective agreements. Disputes are settled in an orderly grievance-arbitration system that prevents unwanted surprises for employers, particularly wildcat strikes; having become part of the system, unions are expected to behave and also to guarantee the behaviour of their members. Thus, unions deliver labour peace for employers and in return get collective-bargaining rights and the dues checkoff. At the time of the postwar compromise, the economy was growing fast enough to pay for labour peace with a collective-bargaining system. By this new arrangement, strikes were to be conducted inside a system of rules. They are permitted only after the expiration of a collective agreement, after the breakdown of negotiations, and after a period of conciliation. The laws covering strike activity are among the great achievements of bureaucratic order. There are rules about picketing, voting, time lines, delays, and dispute resolution. There are penalties and there are referees who interpret the rules. A strike is like a sporting event, though the scoring is not as clear; but each side clearly opposes the other, and the aim is to win. During a strike each side has a strategy and makes moves based on the ground rules - the labour laws - which attempt, with some success, to contain the strike in its own space and to impose some order on the process. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING COMES TO THE PUBLIC SECTOR

It took about two decades after the postwar compromise for publicsector workers to acquire legislated collective-bargaining rights like work-

XO

BACKGROUND

ers in the private sector. Labour relations were different in the public sector. Governments were not so anxious to bargain with their employees. Primarily, though not exclusively, two arguments were used to limit collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers. The first was that since the public pays for public services through taxes and user fees,6 the usual economic relationship that underlies collective bargaining does not seem to apply. There is no privately owned company trying to exploit its employees to make more profit, and there is no economic price to pay in the event of a strike - only inconvenience to the public. The second argument invokes the "sovereignty of Parliament." Since the public elects a government to manage the public sector, any impediment to that government, including a collective agreement with its employees, would be seen as undemocratic and against the elected will of the people. However, as the acceptance and practice of collective bargaining expanded in the 19505 and 19605, it became blatantly unfair to deny public-sector workers rights that were available to workers in other sectors, particularly as the wage gap grew. Governments were becoming big employers. As such, they needed restraint, and their employees needed better wages. It became increasingly difficult for any government to dismiss the employer relationship with its employees, the true underpinning of collective bargaining. In the early 19705, provincial public-sector workers in Ontario received limited collective-bargaining rights, and this in turn led to the question of "full and free" collective bargaining - which meant the right to strike. "Essentiality" then became an issue. Withdrawing labour from "essential services" such as hospitals, ambulances, and firefighting because of a collective-bargaining dispute did not seem fair to the public. So what developed was a limited right to strike, because in order to keep these services operating, some workers would have to continue working during a strike. In many ways, the development of collective-bargaining rights for Ontario civil servants was similar to the emergence of collectivebargaining rights for workers in private-sector industry after the Second World War. Like private employers, the Ontario government considered limited collective-bargaining rights preferable to dealing with the possible alternative, which in this case might include an organizing drive by an outside union.7 How It Came About The Civil Service Association of Ontario (CSAO), an in-house employee organization, had been established in 1911. It was formed for the

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

2,1

purpose of "improving the service, promoting social togetherness, urging healthy athletics and co-operating with one another in the purchasing of supplies." The civil service grew tremendously in the 19505 and 19605. In 1951 the Ontario government had 14,100 employees, and this had grown to 67,501 by I973- 8 Meanwhile, the government adopted management practices found in the private sector, and consequently the Ontario Public Service became impersonal as well as large. According to Craig Heron, this growth in the public sector was taking place at the same time as widespread unionization in the private sector: "Standards of living comparisons went out of whack. Civil service organizations started to make comparisons and they learned they were falling behind. It used to be that a civil servant was better off than an auto worker. That was no longer the case. Civil servants began to transform their associations: hire full time staff, talk about collective bargaining and the right to strike at conventions." The history of the CSAO between the 19508 and 19708 reflects this trend. The CSAO had its first union "experience" in 1950 when it conducted and won a referendum to join the Trades and Labor Congress during a disagreement with the Leslie Frost government. This gained employees some tangible improvements from the government, and in 1966 the CSAO took a further step forward when it registered as a union for the purpose of organizing new bargaining units. Bob Hebdon, who worked at CSAO/OPSEU from 1968 until I99Z and later taught industrial relations at Cornell University, has observed: "Publicsector unions were making huge moves in the 19605. In Ontario it was slower. Municipal wages were way ahead of provincial wages. There was a mood of higher expectations in the government. CSAO took strike votes that were not really illegal. There was no law preventing them. The government provided collective-bargaining rights but they also contained strikes and limited the scope of bargaining." In the late 19605, the provincialization of some municipal services brought into the Ontario Public Service former municipal workers who were seasoned unionists. Other unions, specifically the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), claimed organizing jurisdiction on provincial government workers and started to organize. They found a ready audience among civil servants, who were aware of their economic slippage compared with unionized workers. Fearing labour disorder in its workforce, the Conservative government of John Robarts knew that it had to come up with a solution, and this led to the report Collective Bargaining in the Ontario Public Service (1969), which Judge Walter Little wrote for the Ontario government. The right to strike was never even considered by Judge Little, who described civil service strikes as a "harbinger of social disintegration." Premier John

Z2,

BACKGROUND

Robarts was more condescending: "If you give a man a new toy, you must expect him to play with it."9 (This was echoed by Mike Harris twenty-seven years later on the first day of the OPSEU strike, 26 February 1996: "I think they were given this candy, this new tool, by Rae and they're determined to, you know, to go and use it and try it and I'm not so sure that there was anything we could have done to stop them.")10 However, in October 1969 the CSAO got automatic dues checkoff and sole bargaining authority for civil servants. The Davis government that succeeded Robarts appeased civil servants with partial concessions. The CSAO received limited collectivebargaining rights in 1972 with passage of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA), which included legislated management rights. Most of the 1972 collective-bargaining reforms had been recommended in Judge Little's report. Strikes were to be illegal, and collectivebargaining disputes were to be resolved by binding arbitration; the CSAO was to be legally recognized as the bargaining agent, holding off organizing threats from CUPE and other unions. The arbitrators were expected to keep up to date with the compensation rates and working conditions achieved in the "right to strike" sector, and to apply those awards (standards) in their rulings on the public sector. The key word was "comparability." Two principles were established here: (i) workers with collective bargaining rights do better; (2) public-sector workers should not fall behind other workers. A kind of truncated unionism came into being, but the key dispute with the employer was settled by a government-run body. The Davis government believed that the 1972 CECBA and its 1975 amendments were enough to ward off the "barbarians at the gate" and appease the aspirations of its employees. By and large this was so; CECBA was, in effect, the Ontario government's postwar compromise to its civil servants. Like the original postwar compromise, the act brought collective bargaining rights to working people because of union organizing and union agitation. The government believed that it was better to have limited collective-bargaining rights than to run the risk of full unionization. However, the leadership of the union, whether CSAO or OPSEU, never accepted the limitation of the rights found in CECBA. (The name change from CSAO to OPSEU took place in 1976; it was done in order to reflect the organization's evolution into a union as well as its membership in labour federations.)11 In 1979 corrections officers went on an illegal strike for two days and won their own bargaining unit. The government viewed the strike as a breakdown of the CECBA compromise, because the union leadership had not held to its end of the deal and kept its members in line. As a result, Sean O'Flynn, the president of OPSEU, was sent to jail for twenty-five days. Ten years later, in 1989, the corrections officers

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

2,3

staged another walkout, this one being against the Liberal government of David Peterson over the issue of pensions. From 1972 until 1994, CSAO/OPSEU was in an "in-between" state with regard to collective bargaining. Although it had the right to negotiate collective agreements, disputes were settled by binding arbitration. At the same time, OPSEU openly championed the right to strike as a fundamental right for unions. With the right to strike, a union no longer simply functions as part of a bureaucratic and legalistic labour relations system. The right to strike confers a different identity on the union. The basis of the union's strength becomes the support of its members. It can bargain only to the extent that it can pull off a strike vote and then, if necessary, an effective strike. These two acts are the union's currency for bargaining. The strike weapon brings more balance to the employer-employee equation. Workers can engage their employer in economic and political battle, and unions are given the chance to compete with their employer on a more equal footing, rather than relying on an arbitrator who does not and cannot break new ground. Frances Lankin, who was a staff negotiator for OPSEU before being elected as an NDP MPP in 1990, regarded the right to strike as an essential step forward for labour relations in the Ontario Public Service: "Neither side has ever had to mature. Arbitration provided a false security blanket. It was a system that never tested the real pressures on either group. It never forced people to work through differences across the table. Going to arbitration was never a high risk for either side. Arbitration basically hands over your problems to somebody else." Angelo Pesce, who was the Ontario government's chief negotiator and the deputy minister of Management Board as special adviser on labour relations from April 1993 until April 1996, agrees with Lankin: "The right to strike is an effective way to resolve issues. It forces people to be accountable for their actions. The trouble with arbitration is that it's a way of delegating, of abdicating accountability for one's actions to a third party. Both parties can get too comfortable to let somebody else make all the decisions. A strike forces people to take accountability for their actions. It's good for both sides. You get better resolutions and a more mature relationship." OPSEU AND THE R I G H T TO STRIKE

From the very beginning in 1972., CSAO/OPSEU opposed the limited nature of our collective bargaining and demanded a full right to strike. Our motto for twenty years was "Free the servants." The campaign for full collective bargaining rights was kicked off at a special general

2,4

BACKGROUND

membership meeting in 1976. Dues were doubled, rising from one dollar to two per member per week. The additional funds paid for radio advertisements, billboards, lobbying, and promotion. But in the mid19 8os OPSEU began to move away from its commitment to the right to strike. Under the presidency of James Clancy (1984-90) it relied on the "campaign" as a way of achieving results for the membership. Bill Kuehnbaum, who teaches math at Cambrian College in Sudbury, recalls: "In 1985, the union leadership started a campaign to diminish contributions to the strike fund. They wanted to suspend contributions for a period of time to fund operating expenses. That idea was defeated by the union's 1985 convention. For the next year there was a campaign to undermine the continued funding of the strike fund, targeting the college academic strike of 1984 for allegedly frivolous expenses." This effort played on the historical intra-union resentment towards college professors. At the 1986 convention, a defence fund was established and enshrined in the OPSEU constitution. The convention decided that the strike fund would get only half of the current contribution of twenty-five cents that was paid into it by each member each week; the defence fund would get the other half. There is another perspective on these events, as Smokey Anwyll, a member of the union's Executive Board at the time, has noted: "The OPS members had no use for the strike fund. It was either [the defence fund] or no strike fund." Similarly, Leah Casselman, who was also on the board, recalls: "We wanted to preserve the strike fund. We had some big fights coming up, like Lavigne and the National Citizen's Coalition, and we didn't want to dip into the strike fund. It would have been nicer to get recognition for the right to strike earlier, but there wasn't the mind-set until other groups came in." Fred Upshaw, who was the first vice-president and treasurer of OPSEU at the time, agrees with Anwyll and Casselman: "At convention, some people thought that the strike fund was underwriting a small fraction who had the right to strike. The idea was that if we didn't have the right to strike then we'd have a fund to fight the government." Kuehnbaum never opposed the creation of the defence fund or the funding of special projects, but he was against lowering contributions to the strike fund. He had been a member of the OPSEU Executive Board since 1979, and in 1986 he challenged Clancy for the presidency of OPSEU. His campaign was based on this one issue - to protect the strike fund. He argued that reducing contributions to the strike fund would be seen by the government as a signal that we were not really interested in the right to strike. Kuehnbaum remembers arguing, "There is going to be a strike in the OPS and we're going to need the money." Today he beams as he recalls his ability to predict the future:

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

25

"I did say there would be a strike in the OPS, that it would last six weeks and cost $30 million." He wasn't far off. The 1996 strike lasted five weeks and cost us $23 million. Kuehnbaum comes from the college sector. He had led an illegal, provincewide, one-day strike in 1975 for a fairer arbitration system in college bargaining. Before then, the employer had chosen the arbitrator to resolve disputes in collective bargaining. The college staff won the right to strike in 1979 with the enactment of the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA), and academic staff went on strike in 1984, winning a workload formula system that prevented rampant overwork. They didn't need to be convinced of the importance of the strike weapon. Clancy's rationale for establishing the defence fund was to fund the legal costs needed to protect OPSEU (and the entire labour movement) from the challenge to collective bargaining launched by Merv Lavigne and the National Citizen's Coalition (NCC) in 1985. Lavigne worked in Northern College in Haileybury and was a dues payer to OPSEU but not a member. Under the terms of the Rand formula, employees who work in a place that has a collective agreement must pay dues to the union. Otherwise, they are considered "free riders." The Rand formula, named after the arbitrator, Justice Ivan Rand, is considered a major component of the postwar compromise. It evolved out of a 1945 strike by the United Auto Workers against Ford in Windsor. One must sign a union card to become a member of the union, and it seems that Lavigne had not done so. He did not like the fact that OPSEU was funding political causes with which he disagreed. The NCC did not like the Rand formula, and neither it nor Lavigne liked unions. Together, they took OPSEU to court over the use of union dues, but they lost their case when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of OPSEU in 1991. Kuehnbaum lost too. With the defeat of his bid for the presidency, the right-to-strike issue was laid to rest for about five years, until the 1990 election of the NDP government of Bob Rae. With Frances Lankin as a key player in the Rae government, it was all but certain that CECBA reform, with the enhancement of collectivebargaining rights for civil servants, would occur - and, indeed, after its election in September 1990 the NDP government offered us expanded collective-bargaining rights, which included the right to strike.12 Discussions began in the first year of the government's mandate, in June 1991. We at OPSEU wanted no provisions for essential or emergency services; we believed that these services would limit our ability to pull off a complete strike (and indeed they were a major headache for OPSEU in the 1996 strike), but we ultimately agreed to drop this demand, for it was clear that the price tag on the right to strike was accepting the essential services provision.

2.6

BACKGROUND

Then the trouble started in the union. There was a strong and wellorganized opposition to the right to strike. Many activists and leaders wanted to maintain access to the arbitration system. OPSEU had done well by the arbitration system since 1973. Wages had kept pace, benefits had kept pace, and our record on classification disputes was quite successful. It was a legalistic, bureaucratic system, and members barely had to pay attention: the union would make arguments about comparability, the employer would take the opposite position, and the arbitrator would then make a ruling. Moreover, when other unions went on strike, we benefited. OPSEU had a strong cadre of member activists and staff who liked this system. Entire careers and skill sets were developed in this type of labour relations system. But Bob Hebdon argues that the union paid a political price with the arbitration system: "We were following other unions. We never set trends. The process is conservative. We did well and got decent awards over the years, but you don't build a union that way." OPSEU and the government had developed a system where occupational groups used to achieve additional wage gains, sometimes at the expense of other groups. The system was driven by occupation, comparability, political jockeying to get control of a wage team, and "making the case." If employees in an identical or similar occupation for a different employer were earning a higher salary, then a "special case" could be pursued. I was on bargaining teams in the mid-1980s in which the entire bargaining unit won a general wage increase, but some occupations won an additional increase. Increases for occupations were also won through classification grievances. As a result of a successful grievance, an occupation would be reclassified and employees given higher wages by an arbitrator, outside of regular bargaining. As recently as August 1995, nine hundred property assessors each won an 8.8 per cent wage increase with retroactivity of $22,000 net.13 There is a twenty-year history of special cases and classification grievances during this arbitration period. Hebdon was never impressed with this system: "Arbitration in the long run doesn't serve the interests of the workers. It's a false kind of paradise. No identification with the union is necessary to achieve results. We got good at that and special cases. However, the union was lobbying itself and tried to pretend that special cases and wages weren't coming out of one big pot. Everybody is at the trough and it's the union's fight to sort out the shoving and pushing. There's no union entity that comes out of that. The union becomes a vehicle, something you ride for a while." Like Hebdon, many of us who favoured the right to strike believed that the labour relations system was due for a massive change, given the changing political winds in Canada. We believed in the strike weapon not only on principle but for tactical reasons. Arbitrators can be controlled by governments. A strike is a more level playing field.

OPSEU Acquires the Right to Strike

2.7

Between 1992 and 1993, there was a debate inside OPSEU over reform of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA). Those who opposed the transition from arbitration to strike and lockout included many of OPSEU'S activists and leaders, including some members of the Executive Board. They picketed the head office of OPSEU in 1993, and broke into a regular meeting of the Executive Board. The opposition to the right-to-strike was centred in southwestern Ontario (London) and eastern Ontario (Kingston and Brockville). In November 1992., OPSEU president Fred Upshaw and I had gone to London to debate with two Executive Board members who opposed the reform. The opposition had filled the room with busloads of members, and it was most discouraging to see hundreds of union members wearing buttons opposing the right to strike. We were concerned that we might lose this chance to achieve the right to strike. We were worried that Bob Rae was not particularly anxious to take more public heat over labour law reform after the business community hysteria about the anti-scab provisions of Bill 40. Giving civil servants the right to strike would hardly be a popular step. Frances Lankin, who was chair of the Management Board of Cabinet in the Rae government and was responsible for labour relations, believes that the government never wavered on its commitment to give provincial civil servants the right to strike: "We heard the anti-right-tostrike voices inside OPSEU, and around the cabinet table there were some questions: 'What are we doing, Frances?' There was never a rethinking, though." OPSEU opponents to the right to strike had two objections. First, they believed that OPSEU did well by the arbitration system. As long as the principle of comparability remained in tact, they thought it would be foolish to abandon the arbitration system. Their second objection was the issue of essential services. If the level of essential services was so high in the institutions that they could never pull off an effective strike, it would be foolish to give members what would be an ineffectual right. Ron Elliot, vice-president of OPSEU for southwestern Ontario, put this point clearly: "Psychiatric hospitals and residential workers shouldn't have the right to strike if so many of them are essential. They can never have a meaningful strike. They can never get a wage increase." Lankin thought that the opposition probably had deep roots. It did not surprise her: "I said to people in cabinet that we do not have mature labour relations. And I saw that aspect of the response of some parts of OPSEU as being comfortable where they were - being able to pound the table and call for things they were never going to get. Once the reality was there, people had to think through what it meant; sometimes it meant tough decisions." In many ways, the opposition inside OPSEU was simply the institutional response of a union that was accustomed to the arbitration system, as Lankin pointed out:

Z8

BACKGROUND

At the membership and staff leadership level that must have been a haunting question, entering into a whole new world. The unwieldy size of the bargaining unit, the diverse nature of the membership, the strong sense of professionalism of many people in the public sector. The union never had an opportunity to permeate the workplace culture. It's an immense task to exercise the right to strike, and the doubts must have been profound - whether the union could rise to the challenge, whether people would be worse off for a period of time. The weakness of the steward structure and the immaturity of the union was because of the coddling by arbitration. That must have been at the back of people's minds.

Linda Torney, the president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, was formerly a staff negotiator with OPSEU. She recalled, "I noticed the opposition to the right to strike when I was there. I always thought it was wishful thinking by those who knew it was essential. Obviously a lot of work was done." Despite the opposition, Ontario civil servants were given the legal right to strike by Bill 117 in February 1994. The legislation also expanded the scope of our collective bargaining. Management rights are the areas of labour relations that are off-limits to collective bargaining, and under the old CECBA they were actually listed in the legislation; important labour relations issues such as training, technological change, and pensions were legally excluded from collective bargaining. This changed with Bill 117. The management rights language was removed from the legislation and about 8,500 more OPS employees were granted collective-bargaining rights.14 This resulted in the creation of a seventh, more "professional" bargaining unit, which opted for its own bargaining agent, the Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO). Removing management rights from the legislation gave us the right to negotiate pensions. OPSEU had complained for years about the way the government unilaterally managed the pension plan. On iz April 1994, in exchange for giving the government a pension holiday worth about $392. million over three years, OPSEU negotiated joint trusteeship with the government.15 (This became a stumbling block for Mike Harris in 1995. He resorted to legislation to get around joint control, as he exempted the government from about $400 million in legislated requirements for laid-off senior workers.) Bill 117 also granted civil servants more political rights. All except very senior civil servants were now permitted to be more closely identified with a political party and political debate. Fred Upshaw looks back with pride: "All the big things that we fought for came to fruition when I was president. The right to strike, pensions, political rights. We became a union."

CHAPTER 2

The World Changes for Ontario

Over the past decade, Ontario has lost its way. From the first Throne Speech of the Harris government, 27 September 1995

When, in the 1995 Ontario election, the NDP was swept out of office and replaced by the reactionary Conservative government of Mike Harris, the handwriting was on the wall. The message from the Harris government as employer to its civil servant employees was the same message that all workers were receiving from all levels of government, as well as from business and the "experts." The politics of the strike cannot be separated from the broader politics of neoconservatism. The members of OPSEU heard and understood Harris's message loud and clear. It would have been much more difficult to build for the strike without this message. Almost everyone I interviewed at least mentioned the broader politics. They viewed the strike as the front line in the fight against the Harris cuts. In this sense it was a political strike. This chapter is a description of the changing political and economic landscape in Ontario in the mid-i^os. Neoconservatism is about more than right-wing governments. It is about the deregulation of labour markets and businesses, about changes in social policy that weaken the social safety net and social programs, and about making unions weaker. It is about management practices that redesign workplaces to give management more power and flexibility. And it is about transferring more wealth and power to the wealthy and to businesses so that profits can be pursued in less accountable ways - less accountable to governments and workers. Ultimately, neoconservatism is about lowering the wage bill.

30

BACKGROUND

The Harris government was indeed pointing Ontario in a new direction. Premier Harris thought he had the answers to its economic and political malaise. He believed that the 44.8 per cent vote that his party had received in the June 1995 election gave it the mandate to implement the program of the Common Sense Revolution (CSR). The CSR provided the plan, the path, and the tao to the Ontario that was lost an Ontario that prospered, had confidence in its future, and was a leader in the Canadian confederation. The complexities and subtleties of modern social and political life did not really matter to the Conservative MPPS. They had a plan, they had the will to implement it, and they had a parliamentary majority. We first became aware of the political program of the Harris Tories in May 1994 with the appearance of a twenty-one-page booklet called The Common Sense Revolution. Mike Harris had been leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario since 1990. At that time nobody took Harris or the Tories too seriously. For two consecutive provincial elections, in 1987 and 1990, they had finished third. The once-mighty Big Blue Machine of the Ontario Tories, which had governed Ontario from 1943 to 1985, lay in ruins, and in 1990 the Tories had dug themselves deeper into the hole by electing a leader who was far to the right of the political consensus in Ontario politics. The Tory disagreement with the Liberal and NDP programs of the previous ten years was described on page 14 of the CSR booklet: "The Ontario Government has been driving jobs out of the province through 10 years of ideologically driven legislation and over-regulation. No one knows for sure how many jobs these policies have cost us." There is not a single word about the disastrous effects of the free-trade and high-interest-rate policies of the Mulroney government. On the same page the booklet states, "We don't have time for a sterile political debate using the outdated labels of 'left' and 'right.'" Both these statements printed in bold type. While calling for an end to ideological politics, the government proposed a sweeping ideological program for Ontario; and since it viewed the virtues of its program as self-evident, it named its plan a "common sense" revolution. The CSR transcends political debate, reducing political and social discourse to its most simple and moral-istic form. There is nothing subtle about the CSR - no shades of grey. Its aim is to free the economy from the constraints, regulations, and social programs established during the past half-century. The Common Sense Revolution is a right-wing world view; it is highly ideological and habitually takes the most (or almost the most) right-wing position on major economic issues. It is no secret that the

The World Changes for Ontario

31

Harris Tories feel politically close to the federal Reform Party of Preston Manning. As government, they attempt to transform these positions into policies and then into practice. They reason the economy is weak is that the government is too big, too intrusive, and too liberal with your money. When unemployment is high and economic growth is low, it is because business is too regulated and overtaxed. There are too many people on welfare. Welfare payments are so generous that they compete with employers looking for low-wage labour. Taxes are too high. There are too many civil servants and their union is too powerful. Equity programs are "discrimination in reverse." Government is everywhere. The economic culprits are taxation, collective bargaining, welfare, and overregulation. But while arguing in this vein, Mike Harris and his supporters rarely, if ever, point a finger at the practices and excesses of big business. The Harris government is doing everything possible to reverse the development of the social welfare state and the collective-bargaining system. If people suffer as a result, that's too bad. The Harris Tories want to weaken the parallel sector that we call the public sector. They do not agree with its aims and purposes. They believe that it is wasteful 1 and an impediment to the full development of the economy. They favour privatization because it provides more space for the business sector to expand. When the Tories won the provincial election on 8 June 1995, they took 82 of the 130 seats. How could this have happened? It might be expected in right-wing Alberta, but not in centrist Ontario. The great political achievement of the "whiz kids" of the Harris team was their effective use of fear and resentment to sell the idea of the Common Sense Revolution and get people to elect them to office. In a time of declining expectations, it is relatively simple to divide people against one another - white against non-white, rich against poor, worker against worker, and worker against welfare recipient. Since the early 19905, "insecurity of employment" has become a major concern for working Ontarians. With high unemployment rates and high social assistance numbers, people naturally began to worry about their own future. Ironically, the 1995 vote for a reactionary Tory government had that in common with the 1990 vote for Bob Rae and the New Democratic Party. Both were votes against a declining economy and for a program that might correct it. But a social democratic solution never really emerged during Rae's mandate. By the end of his term as premier, his government still seemed to be biding time, with no real prescription for what ailed Ontario. Meanwhile, Lyn McLeod and the Liberals had no idea what they stood for as they watched their

32.

BACKGROUND

huge pre-election lead disappear. In contrast, the Harris Tories presented a clear economic message to Ontario: "Eliminate the burdens of an intrusive government and the economy will do well." This message, which resonated through enough corners of Ontario in 1995 to win a majority government, was an echo of an international business mantra that bucking the global trend was foolish and idealistic, even damaging. In their search for alternative answers to the economic decline they were experiencing, Ontario voters had elected four different governments in the four elections between 1985 and 1995 after forty-two years of uninterrupted middle-of-the-road Progressive Conservative government. In 1985 the Liberals governed with a minority and an "Accord" (a policy understanding) with the New Democratic Party. In 1987 they won a majority government with ninety-five seats, but they were ousted (as was their leader, David Peterson) in 1990 when the New Democrats won a majority government with seventy-four seats. Then, in 1995, the CSR reconstructed Tories returned from the political wilderness with a majority government of eighty-two seats/ This is not a stable voting pattern. Like Pirandello's three characters in search of a play, Ontario voters were in search of a political program, a political party, and a political leader. The election of a government with that style of politics in June 1995 was not exceptional. It fitted well into the global outbreak of right-wing policies and economics. Ontario voters had resisted neoconservative policies for over a decade. Frank Miller had been rejected in 1985, and Mike Harris had been rejected in 1990. The timing was not right until 1995. By then, Ontario was following a widespread trend; it did not lead the way for neoconservatism. Leadership came from the most likely sources - Great Britain and the United States. Ontario was indeed a different place in the 19905. Before 1989, its industry had benefited from the protections of Confederation. The economic infrastructure of Ontario, its industrial base, was hurt badly in the recession of the early 19908. To make matters worse, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement had meant that companies now had less economic incentive to reside in Ontario. They left for the greener (as in money) pastures of the southern United States and the maquiladora zones in Mexico. During the free trade debate in the mid- and late 19805, critics of the agreement had predicted that this would happen. We also feared the prospect of harmonization of our social and economic policies with those of the United States or, worse, Mexico. Brian Mulroney and Michael Wilson had laughed at us. They

The World Changes for Ontario 3 3 knew we were right, but they disagreed with our concern. Yet if Canadian jurisdictions had to compete with American and Third World practices for investment and jobs, the effect on our living standard would inevitably be downward. Harmonization with American standards means lower taxes, less environmental and economic regulation, a weaker public sector, weaker protection for workers, a downgraded social safety net, workfare, and a general lowering of living conditions for most people. The Common Sense Revolution is the politics of free trade. Harris reminded us of this in his first Throne Speech when he said that Ontario had lost its way but was now back on track: "These measures and others send a positive message across the province, through the nation, and around the globe: Ontario is open for business again."3 Harris was wrong. Ontario had not lost its way. It was just slower than other jurisdictions to move into the free trade fold. In that world, jurisdictions bid downward to attract investment and serve the economic giants, offering lower taxes, lower environmental and safety regulations, and cheaper labour. Sometimes they enact laws to make themselves weaker, knowing that governments are the only possible challenge to the multinational giants that dominate entire industries, entire markets, and entire economies. In reality, it is the world that has lost its way. The three decades of economic growth after the Second World War came to a halt in the early 19705. Between 1945 and 1973 there had been enough economic growth to cut the pie in more equitable ways and still keep business happy. It was a period of social progress, when the public sector grew, providing services, activities, and subsidies to a wider group of people. Wealth was distributed downward. Many Canadian workers acquired collective-bargaining rights, and some of the rougher edges of unregulated business were smoothed out. The social safety net appeared, providing some sense of an economic "floor," and we heard lofty statements about building a better world in which there would be no hunger and no need, a world in which everyone would be able to have an education. We developed a socialized health-care system. We even heard talk about a guaranteed annual income. Then things began to stall, and by the mid-1970s there was tangible evidence of economic trouble: inflation and high unemployment. In the late 19705 and early 19805, the political right gave us its diagnosis as well as its prescription for getting the economy growing again. Its diagnosis was simple. The government was a drain on the economy. It produced nothing. It regulated real economic activity for dubious ends. It sapped billions of dollars from the market that would

34

BACKGROUND

otherwise be put into real economic activity. It promoted labour and compensation schemes that were alien to the logic of the market. And the net effect of all this was slower economic growth. The prescription was pretty obvious. Deregulate the power of government and weaken the unions. Then surely the golden age of market economies would return. According to Mel Watkins, professor of economics at the University of Toronto, the economy changed significantly in the 19708: "Until the early 19708, unemployment rates of 3 to 5% were common and standards of living were generally improving. Economic growth was taking place. The fruits of the economy were being redistributed somewhat equitably. Since the mid-1970s the rates of growth were much lower and unemployment was much higher. Income distribution tended to worsen. We had 4 to 5% economic growth for long periods of time. Now growth is about half of that." The average annual economic growth rate in Canada between 1950 and 1980 was 5.0 per cent. That dropped to 2.4 per cent for the 1981-94 period. This was reflected in the unemployment figures. The average rate of unemployment in Canada between 1950 and 1980 was 5.0 per cent, and the figure doubled to 9.8 per cent between 1981 and 1994. Average interest rates increased by a factor of six in these two periods, from an average of i.i per cent to 6.1 per cent.4 As political parties and leaders who endorsed neoconservative policies were elected in the late 19705, governments distanced themselves from the economy. When governments retreat from the economy, the control of the employer (or the manager) is enhanced. The employer's interests coincide with an economic redistribution that assures a larger share for executive salaries, stockholders, and reinvestment. During the postwar prosperity, workers had relied on government and their unions to get them a bigger slice of the pie. During times of growth, governments can be prodded by pressure from below. According to Watkins, "The markets left to their own devices don't distribute very equitably. We get into a situation where people say the government is overinvolved. This leads to a situation where there is no effective countervail on the market itself. We build the welfare state, which is a creation of government. That comes out of political struggle. We build unions to create a countervail to market forces. Once we lose that, we go back to an unequal distribution of income." Chris Schenk, the director of research at the Ontario Federation of Labour, observed: "We went down the slope; there were longer and deeper recessionary periods and weaker recoveries. In the early 19805

The World Changes for Ontario 3 5 we had the greatest economic slump since the Great Depression of the 19305. That was surpassed by the downturn of the early 19905. Previously they got through deficit problems through economic growth, but that was no longer possible. It became a crunch period for the economic elites. The debate was shifting to those schools of thought which talked about dismantling benefits for workers. They felt that they must control the welfare state and the higher wage, as well as give a freer reign to business." Bob Hebdon agrees: "This is a business agenda about trickle-down theory. 'Give us the free environment to move capital around and we'll create jobs. Everything will work out wonderful. Just give us a free hand.' Politicians no longer have their own agenda. They follow this business agenda. They want to deregulate and privatize everything in the public sector. It's rampant capitalism." What really trickles down - floods down - is the crisis, from the broad economy to the operation of an enterprise, to the way people live and work. When Canada has an economic slowdown, money is tightened, companies downsize, workers are laid off, wages fall, welfare rolls grow. All aspects of economic life are affected. In recent years, economic and fiscal policy has been slanted towards business and its owners. Free trade initiatives decreased government's ability to intervene in the economy, and deregulation has exacerbated that trend. As business became less constrained by government regulations, there were fewer restrictions on investment. The idea of controlling investment to realize political and social objectives was getting less support from governments. At the enterprise level, companies were becoming more competitive (cutthroat). Free trade had opened up local markets to competition from international giants, and thus companies were under greater pressure to keep their expenses down. In the 19808, managers restructured their companies, introducing computer technology that reduced the size of the workforce and gave management more control over the work process. Work was modularized, making it more susceptible to outsourcing, while new management theories promoted downsizing and outsourcing. These management theories applied inventory principles to human resources. It is a common practice of manufacturers and retailers to try to have the amount of inventory necessary for running the business on a given day - but not appreciably more than that. It costs money to stock supplies and materials. The less that is purchased from suppliers to meet everyday business needs, the less money there is tied up in resources. The trick is to have the supplies on hand as you need them. The term used to describe this system is "just in

36

BACKGROUND

time." The same principle is now being applied to labour resources through the outsourcing of work. Why keep people on staff for decades, paying for their benefits, pensions, training, holidays, and sick time? Why keep workers on the payroll when the work cycle fluctuates? Why keep high-priced professionals and their support staff on the payroll when their work frequently flows around specific projects? It is more economical to employ just-in-time workers, since contract workers maintain and train themselves. Neoconservative management theory removes the employers' responsibility for the welfare of its workers. As a result of these developments, working life has been getting more tentative. In 1976, 10.3 per cent of the workforce was self-employed; that figure had jumped to 16.9 per cent by 1997.5 Self-employment is not a secure way of making a living. Work tends to be short term, and one is always looking for the next job. Self-employed workers must take care of their own pension and insurance plans; they have to fend for themselves and are responsible for their own retraining, a major task in this period of technological change. High unemployment rates in the 19808 had made it easier for businesses to adopt the practice of using just-in-time workers. Under this system, enterprises try to find an exact skill for an exact period of time. It is the skill that is hired, not the worker. This is the main mark of neoconservative practices on the labour market, and it goes against a fundamental principle of unionism. For us, the purpose of the economy as well as the focus of an enterprise should be the welfare of the worker. The use of contract labour is a move away from permanent employment and a move towards increased employer flexibility. Either way, it means a reduction in wages and job security - and that, of course, affects the way working people live their lives. I asked Chris Schenk about being a worker in 1968 compared with 1998. "Thirty years ago, you'd be living in an economy that was expanding," he said. "If you had the skills and motivation, you would probably have a permanent job. That is no longer the case. Work is now more contingent, short term, and part time. The largest-growing component of the labour force is the selfemployed." The world has certainly changed for Ontario. In the early 19805 we had lived through a recession that was the worst slowdown since the Great Depression of the 19308. In 1989 the Free Trade Agreement with the United States was implemented, and in 1994 it was expanded to include Mexico under NAFTA. In the early 19908 we lived through yet another recession, one that was even deeper than the downturn of the early 19805. It was exacerbated by

The World Changes for Ontario 37 a high interest rate policy as well as free trade. Money was tight. Companies were leaving Ontario for good. According to our former premier, Bob Rae, "Workers paid heavily: 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost between 1989 and 1992, with hardly any let-up."6 Unemployment rates shot up to over 10 per cent and stayed at high levels. The welfare rolls also expanded dramatically, from 6.4 per cent in June 1988 to 8.1 per cent in June 1990, and to 13.1 per cent in June 1991. By March 1992., more than one million Ontarians were on social assistance.7 Ontario was in an economic tailspin. Voters had turned to the social democrats in 1990, hoping for a resolution to the turmoil. Seeing no improvement, they turned to Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution in June 1995. Before the summer was out, we realized that this new government was serious about making deep cuts to the public sector and the social safety net. Civil servants became increasingly aware of their intransigent employer, who wished to weaken most of their collective-bargaining rights and protections, especially in the area of job security. The Harris government had been in office for only twenty-five days when it made its first round of rollbacks. On 21 July the provincial treasurer, Ernie Eves, announced cuts of $1.9 billion. The lion's share of these cuts was to come from recipients of social welfare. Starting on i October, payments to approximately 500,000 welfare recipients were to be decreased by 21.6 per cent. As well, payments to school boards, universities, and social service agencies were reduced, and ministries were expected to lower expenses by $500 million. Eves also announced cuts to day-care subsidies8 and slashed the pay equity program.9 Earlier in the week, Premier Harris had announced that he would be scrapping the employment equity program of the NDP government.10 We received more bad news on 8 August, when the labour minister, Elizabeth Witmer, announced the closure of the bipartite Workplace Health and Safety Agency. The agency had been in existence for five years and had established programs for health and safety training. The announcement was applauded by the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.11 In the fall, the minister of community and social services, David Tsubouchi, suggested that welfare recipients could survive the 21.6 per cent cut in payments by buying dented cans of tuna fish and negotiating lower prices with food store owners or supermarket managers.12 Mike Harris enhanced the discussion with his stories of surviving on bologna sandwiches when he was a young man: "I have in my younger days - but I wouldn't want to again. That's why I work so hard to try and get ahead." He also had a few tips for people on

38

BACKGROUND

welfare: "I would advise people, try and work a few hours a week to be able to have more than just a survival diet."13 Mike's father, Deane Harris, had a different recollection of events: "He didn't eat it at home, I can tell you that much."14 His first wife, Mary Alyce Coward, shares the views of the elder Harris, remembering "lavish Sunday dinners at the premier's parents' home." It was like going to the Royal York Hotel, she said, the Harrises "did really well" and "never wanted for anything."15 On 2,7 September the Harris government delivered its first Throne Speech, in which it announced plans to legislate reform of the Ontario Labour Relations Act in favour of employers and to repeal the right of farm workers to organize unions. The government also announced reductions in the premiums that employers pay to workers' compensation, and it reiterated its commitment to workfare. It took its first step towards implementing this program on 4 October, when Minister of Labour Elizabeth Witmer introduced Bill 7, "an act to restore balance and stability to labour relations and to promote economic prosperity." Ever since the NDP government had enacted its labour law reform, Bill 40, with its anti-scab provisions, the business community had been unhappy; and during the election campaign, Harris had promised to repeal all Bill 40 aspects of the Ontario Labour Relations Act. Bill 7 did that and a lot more. It eliminated successor rights for employees who work for a private contractor that loses the contract; it simplified the decertification of a union; and it made certification votes mandatory no matter how many eligible employees sign cards in an organizing drive. Since the 19508, votes had not been necessary when more than 5 5 per cent of eligible employees signed union cards, but this new legislation gave the employer one final shot at killing an organizing drive. Bill 7 passed through three readings of the house in three weeks. Eight teachers at Great Lakes College in west-end Toronto had the first experience with the Bill 7 changes to the Labour Relations Act. They made up a small bargaining unit in OPSEU local 556. The employer locked them out on i January 1996 and immediately brought in eight replacement teachers.16 This was the first use of scab labour by an employer since the passage of Bill 7, and it caused a long and bitter dispute. In late November, the government released its first economic statement. Government spending was to be reduced by between $3.5 and $4.5 billion for fiscal year 1996-97.17 Cuts were planned in transfer payments to agencies and government ministries. Ministry of Labour expenditures were slated to be cut by 46 per cent, making it more difficult to enforce and monitor health and safety and employment stan-

The World Changes for Ontario

39

dards. Then, on 2,9 November, right in the middle of the debate on the economic statement, the government introduced Bill 26, the Omnibus Savings and Restructuring Act. This bill was zn pages long; it amended forty-four statutes, created three acts, and repealed two. Bill 2,6 redefined the powers of government. It granted the minister of health absolute authority over hospitals; it weakened pay equity settlements for underpaid women workers; it granted the minister of municipal affairs authority to abolish local government and force mergers of local municipalities; and it diluted the power of arbitration for those public-sector workers who are denied the right to strike. As well, it tightened freedom of information laws to make it more difficult for citizens to access their own files. This bill was our first glimpse of some of the political ramifications of the Common Sense Revolution. The government was centralizing political authority into the hands of the cabinet away from parliamentary debate and public scrutiny. Matters that had previously been settled in the legislature in public view could now be done behind closed doors by a minister.18 Parliamentary practices were thus weakened. The world was truly changing for Ontario. The structure of government and the public sector were being overhauled in order to facilitate Ontario's entry into the free trade world. As governments and unions are weakened, power is transferred to the private business sector. This is the great transformation of our period. The multinational corporation, big business, the private sector - different terms for the same thing - are getting even more powerful, and it is their needs and demands that are taking control of our lives. The market is everywhere - in bathroom stalls, in classrooms, in prisons, in health care, in cyberspace ... literally everywhere. The people who control markets do not like to be regulated; they like being in control. They do not like governments who take their money, telling them what to do, and they like unions even less. Union-proposed labour relations schemes go against the need of less-restrained capital. The market, left on its own, distributes in an upward direction; in an economy unhampered by government regulation or collective bargaining, political power resides with the owners and managers, those with economic power. Those with economic power want unions and governments to be weakened. The "necessity" of international competition makes the process inevitable. This was an important part of the Common Sense Revolution. Naturally, OPSEU was first on the hit list. Some sections of Bills 7 and 2,6 were directed specifically at OPS workers and overrod

40

BACKGROUND

certain aspects of the OPS collective agreement. The next chapter explores how the Harris government set the stage for a showdown with its own employees and their union.

CHAPTER 3

The World Changes for Civil Servants Civil servants must be stripped of their union rights for the economic good of Ontario.1 Dave Johnson, chairman, Management Board of Cabinet, October 1995

The Ontario Public Service (OPS) had already been threatened with cutbacks before the Harris government came to power, for public-sector money was tight. The first sign of cutbacks was in 1992., during the previous round of collective bargaining. The Rae government wanted to reduce the public service by five thousand jobs. In addition, it opposed any idea of a pay increase. A more pronounced sign of cutbacks came a year later with the Social Contract, the Rae government's program to extract $2. billion a year for three years from public-sector workers. This was a part of Bob Rae's response to the crisis in Ontario government finances. The debt had been growing far faster than projected, and the economy was still reeling from the 1990-91 recession. Companies were leaving for warmer climates where they could find more favourable terms; capital was on a partial strike, threatening a widespread pullout; and unemployment and welfare rolls remained high. The government was feeling the pinch, and public-sector workers were told to fork out the money regardless of their collective agreements - though there was an illusion of negotiations in that unions could bargain the terms of the reduction. Another mark of that period was the establishment of joint union-management committees to find efficiencies and cost savings. All this created a tremendous rift between the NDP government and many unions, OPSEU among them. Many of us in the labour movement saw the Social Contract as a harbinger of more serious trouble. We could already feel the neocoservative winds. Throughout much of Bob

42.

BACKGROUND

Rae's mandate, there was the hope that the NDP would protect us through the storm; but the storm blew right into our house with the change of government in June 1995, when the Harris Tories became the new managers of the Ontario Public Service. They openly wanted to reduce the size of the civil service and privatize much of the rest of it. Mike Harris, Ernie Eves, and Dave Johnson never attempted to hide their intentions. It was right there in The Common Sense Revolution on pages 3 and 9. We spent the summer and the fall of 1995 learning about our new employers at Queen's Park. The news was never good. Hardly a day went by when we didn't hear a new plan or announcement that added to our deepening feeling of insecurity. One day we would read an article about the "overly generous" and unmanageable provisions of our collective agreement. Another day we would hear announcements about huge layoffs, the numbers varying from 13,000 to 2.7,000. Then we read accounts about how certain ministries and services would be cut back or eliminated altogether. On another day we heard announcements about plans to privatize huge portions of the public sector. In October, we saw the government legislate away collective-bargaining rights from unions with Bill 7, and in December we watched it legislate diminished pension rights for older OPS workers who were laid off. The labour relations environment was getting increasingly sour, and thousands of us started worrying about our jobs. Bea Visintin, who works at the Ministry of Health office in Kingston, put it in a nutshell: "The employer changed. We were different from them. We were the enemy. They were in control and they were going to make sure that we knew that. There was an arrogance. That was the only way some of them could deal with what they had to do. But they didn't have to do any of it." We became a labour force under siege. Everybody noticed it. OPSEU took three polls of the membership between July and December 1995 in anticipation of mobilizing for a collective-bargaining dispute, and these polls indicated that union members had an increasing awareness of the danger facing their jobs. By December more and more members were willing to take strike action. The government's behaviour was a very strong builder of the OPSEU strike. I sometimes wonder how some of the cabinet ministers of the Harris government reacted the first time they flipped through an OPSEU collective agreement. Many ministers are self-made millionaires. John Snobelen ran a very successful garbage disposal and trucking firm before he became minister of education and training. Al Palladini owned a successful car dealership just north of Toronto before becoming minister of transportation. Neither was exactly big business, but

The World Changes for Civil Servants 43

both did very well. The collective agreement must have been a veritable nightmare for them. There was language about limiting management rights, retraining, job security, six-month notice, severance, bumping, and redeployment. This is not exactly what they had in mind when they talked about restructuring the Ontario Public Service. Their style of management did not include collective bargaining. Managers manage and workers work. They wanted to downsize and privatize the OPS, but the OPSEU collective agreement stood in the way. It made things too costly. Downsizing is supposed to save you money. Labour relations under the Tories were dramatically different from what we had experienced under the NDP government. Under Harris, there was less interest in dealing with the union that represented about 75 per cent of the OPS workforce, and there was little or no interest in consulting with OPS employees. Malcolm Smeaton, a senior policy analyst with the negotiations secretariat of the Ontario government, who ran the employers' Corporate Strike Response Team during the strike, describes the situation well: There was a big contrast from when the former government was in office. With the NDP there was a perception that everything involved labour relations and unions - whatever you did involved unions. It became a natural reaction of senior civil servants to want to give the employer's and business perspective. Overnight we had a dramatic change. It was reversed. They [the Harris government] knew the business perspective. Deputy ministers would now want to give labour's perspective. "You know the reaction from business and the board of trade; by the way, here's a reaction you might get from labour."

Under the NDP government significant steps had been made towards a bipartite (joint) labour relations system. This was very much by design. In the Rae cabinet there was a belief in the concept of democratization of the workplace. Union-management committees proliferated. As OPSEU president Leah Casselman remembers, "Under the NDP they were interested in what we had to say. They 'committeed' us to death." Having cooperative, or joint, labour relations with management does not sit well with some unionists, and it caused a debate inside OPSEU. Some OPSEU activists believed that if the employer invites you to participate in discussions about the future of the enterprise, the union would be foolish not to participate, because the invitation indicates a maturing of the relationship between the two sides. They believed that unions had waited a long time to be part of the real decision making. Bipartite cost-savings and efficiency committees proliferated during the Social Contract period, and some of the OPSEU leadership were against sitting on these committees. We did not consider that

44

BACKGROUND

cost saving was a role of the union. There was the fear that costs might be saved by cutting jobs, and that union negotiators would then find themselves in the untenable position of agreeing with downsizing. This was made more problematic by a requirement to take a "secrecy" oath before a union member could participate in a committee and receive "confidential" information. One side took the view that we should try to have some direct influence over the decisions made by the employer with the aim of putting the workers' point of view. If the employer invited us into the boardroom, we would be foolish not to take a seat. The opposing side took a more suspicious view. As bargaining agents, unions best represent their members through collective bargaining, presuming that employees and employers have different interests. But at the same time that the employer was weakening our collective-bargaining rights with Social Contract legislation, we were being invited into the inner circles of decision making. Bob Hebdon thought it outrageous: At the time they stomp on collective bargaining, they try to make employees feel a part of the organization. Unions have asked for more input in decision making over the years, but it always fell on deaf ears. The requests ran right into management rights. Look at the context of this. Unions have had to fight for every inch they can for eighty years on the turf of management rights, and all of a sudden at a weak point, management knocks at the door and asks unions to come into the boardroom and talk: "The wave of the future here is for you to have a say in the running of the organization." It's not believable. Its purpose is to drive the final nail into the labour movement. In areas where unions have any strength they are co-opted.

Under Harris, the union debate about cooperative management styles became pointless. The opportunities to sit on joint union-management committees to discuss efficiencies and reorganization had disappeared; the Harris government was not interested in talking to its employees or to the union about the organization of the OPS. This fact suspended the debate inside the union. At the same time, it reinforced the position of those who opposed joint management schemes and helped us build for the strike. Harris's policies reinforced the belief that labour relations are fundamentally conflictual rather than consensual. There is a long history of joint union-management structures in the OPS. A MERC is a ministry employer (employee) relations committee, and the CERC is the central employer (employees) relations committee. The CERC acts as a central clearing house for all labour relations issues and has representation from both Management Board and the union. MERCS are defined by the collective agreement but have no dispute-set-

The World Changes for Civil Servants 45 tlement resolution; if the two sides cannot agree on a solution to a problem, there is no way to break the deadlock. The committees have evolved into information-sharing and problem-solving bodies. On the union side, they are dominated by a few activist union members and union staff. MERCS provided the blueprint for the joint efficiency and cost-savings committees that arose during the Social Contract period. Ed Faulknor, a property assessor from Hamilton, is a long-time veteran of the bipartite MERC world. He was union chair of the Ministry of Finance MERC for about ten years and was also union chair of the CERC. "The CERC had more credibility under Rae," he says. "It had an importance and we resolved issues. Under Rae, there was an attempt to make bipartism work. Rae Daysz didn't help, but we were accomplishing things." Another bipartite body was the Joint Central Committee (jcc). A creation of the Social Contract negotiated between OPSEU and the Rae government, it was composed of three OPSEU members and three government members. Their mandate was to help coordinate the work of all the ministries' cost-savings committees. The government supplied them with an office and equipment, and they met regularly with representatives from Management Board. But when the Social Contract expired in April 1996, so did the jcc. Faulknor remembers that period well: The most pronounced version of the Rae style was the jcc. The government turned to the bargaining agent for efficiencies. The jcc performed a specific management function, to save money. The jcc was an extension of each ministry's cost-savings committee. We were part of the program to address the concerns. It was the only time that we had some say and input on change. I was part of the cost-savings committee at the Ministry of Finance. Some of the things were acted upon. The aim originally was to save Rae Days, to reduce our Social Contract obligation. Ultimately it created a labour relations bipartism. It overlapped with the MERC structure. The philosophies are similar, a joint approach to labour-management. Harris changed it all. They killed the jcc. There were maybe two meetings. They ignored it. The jcc was killed on i April 1996, the day that the Social Contract expired. The meetings were pointless.

Employer employee relation committees (ERCS) had a similar fate under the Harris government, as Faulknor describes: "Meetings were supposed to be monthly. For the first few months we didn't even meet. We did meet once, just before the strike. I still believed, naively, that if you sit at the table you can resolve issues. The only time they took us

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BACKGROUND

seriously was when a Grievance Settlement Board [the arbitration board for the OPS] decision forced them. They just delay and delay otherwise." Noreen Angus, who was chair of the Ministry of the Solicitor General's MERC, also noticed the change: "There was a chill in the air. At the first MERC meeting after the election somebody slammed the door in our face: 'We don't have to consult with you.' Under Rae it was quite the opposite." OPS DOWNSIZING

The cutback announcements and downsizing initiatives occurred at a very fast pace during the summer and fall of 1995. The first big cutback announcement of 21 July had a special emphasis for civil servants, because ministry spending was to be reduced by $500 million.3 At the end of July, Management Board Chairman Dave Johnson announced that layoff notices would begin to go out in the fall as a "prelude to axing 13,000 workers from the government payroll."4 The government announced 1,400 layoffs after the Throne Speech of 2,7 September, and a larger layoff of 3,500 was announced on 27 November. * Also announced was the Internal Administration Program (IAP), with its projected annual savings: "Other Internal government spending will be reduced by 33 per cent for an annual saving of $1.1 billion by the end of 1997-98."6 A legislative offensive was launched against us as well. While Bill 7 was a major assault on the rights of all unions in Ontario, it had greater implications for civil servants, because it removed our successor rights from the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA), and it removed our arbitration rights in classification disputes. Successor rights have been part of labour law for decades. They maintain the bargaining rights of unionized employees whose work has been transferred to a new employer. Successor rights were granted to OPS employees in 1975 under the Crown Transfer Act, and OPSEU has applied them on several occasions. Two examples are the Metro Toronto Housing Authority, which was divested from the Ministry of Housing in the late 19708, and Terenet (the land registry information system) which was divested from the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations in 1992. Where there were no successor rights, employers could and did sell part of their company, sometimes to themselves, in order to discard a collective agreement. The union was then forced to do an organizing drive and negotiate a first collective agreement for former union members. In October 1995 we had in process a successor rights application against Systemhouse after it had acquired the work for the Caseworker Information System from the

The World Changes for Civil Servants

47

Ministry of Community and Social Services. After Bill 7 the application was dead. The removal of our successor rights facilitates the privatization of the public sector. No multinational corporation wants to inherit a collective agreement when acquiring public-sector work. According to Dave Johnson, the CECBA amendments in Bill 7 "would reduce these barriers and give the government the flexibility it needs to be more efficient."7 The other component of Bill 7 that disadvantaged OPS employees the elimination of arbitration rights in classification disputes - was a hard pill for OPSEU to swallow. OPSEU had done well in arbitration in the area of classification. We had language in the collective agreement that gave us arbitration rights in disputes involving entire classifications outside regular wage bargaining. At the time Bill 7 was introduced, the government and union were jointly developing a new classification system for employees represented by OPSEU. OPS employees were also singled out for changes in pension benefits. The government was planning a big layoff, which it wanted to do as cheaply as possible. The existing requirements of pension legislation made the costs much too high, in the view of the government. In Ontario and Nova Scotia, there exists a provision in the pension legislation that protects older workers and workers with long service. In the event of a large layoff they get the right to "grow into" their pension benefit. Under the Ontario Pensions Benefits Act, the "rule of 55" applies when a large layoff has occurred. In other words, a laid-off worker whose years of service plus age equals at least fifty-five can "grow into" an early retirement package, where one exists, without penalty.8 This could expose the employer to a large liability. "While there might be some question over what constitutes a 'large layoff,' there would be no ambiguity over a layoff of 13,000," said Marcia Gillespie, benefits counsellor for OPSEU. "The layoff being contemplated by the Harris government would clearly apply." On 8 July 1995 the Harris cabinet passed an order-in-council exempting the Ontario government, and only the Ontario government, from the pension grow-in provisions. This order was an affront to OPSEU. For years we had struggled to gain joint control and negotiability of our multibillion-dollar pension plan. We had achieved joint trusteeship in 1994, three months after we achieved the right to strike. OPSEU responded to the July 1995 order-in-council by suing the government. We argued that any changes in the pension plan could only be made with the agreement of both the union and the employer under the terms of the OPSEU Pension Act. The government knew it was going to lose OPSEU'S legal challenge to its attempt to exempt us from the pension grow-in provisions - and, indeed, the divisional court did

48

BACKGROUND

agree with OPSEU in a decision released on 2,0 December 1995. The court ruled that according to the OPSEU Pension Act, changes to the pension plan could only be made with the agreement of both OPSEU and the government. And OPSEU had never agreed.9 Anticipating that it would lose the case, the government had tabled legislation ending the grow-in pension provisions for OPS workers as schedule L of Bill 2.6. Being the government has its advantages. If you can't reduce pension rights legally, you simply change the law. It is estimated that the government saved up to $400 million with this exception.10 As now pointed out by Heather Gavin, who had been OPSEU'S staff negotiator when we achieved joint control of the pension plan, "The act says that if there are insufficient funds in the plan to cover the liability for those people being laid off, then the employer has to make it up. You're looking at a lot of money." BUT THEY MAINTAIN OUR RIGHT TO STRIKE

There is a curious anomaly in the Harris Tories' actions against us in the fall of 1995. They took away our grow-in pension provisions and our successor rights; they took away arbitration rights that were in the collective agreement; they announced layoff plans, prepared to remove billions of dollars from the ministries, talked openly about privatizing our work ... yet they kept our right to strike. While doing everything possible to undermine OPSEU'S ability to function as a union, they passed up the opportunity to delegislate our right to strike. It seems bizarre that they allowed this right to continue, a hard-won right that we valued and they opposed. But in fact it was a question of strategy. When I asked former OPSEU president Fred Upshaw why they kept our right to strike, he explained, "They never believed that people who worked for the government had the guts to go on strike." OPSEU negotiator Brian Mayes said much the same thing: "They thought we couldn't pull it off and that an arbitrator might protect us." Harry Glasbeek of Osgoode Hall Law School went further, observing that the government "felt confident that it would gain politically whether the members refused a strike recommendation or whether they went on strike."11 How necessary was the hard-line bargaining stance in order to achieve the stated goals of the Harris Tories? In The Common Sense Revolution they promise to reduce the size of the civil service by 13,000. But "it was already set to shrink by 12,500 through an array of attrition schemes," according to Thomas Walkom.11 This point was made repeatedly by OPSEU. There are three political objectives that the government was trying to achieve by forcing a hard line with its employees. First, it wanted to defeat the union. Glasbeek had noted

The World Changes for Civil Servants 49

this: "The thrust of the government's bargaining strategy should now be manifest; it wants to undermine the union." If, in February 1996, OPSEU members had accepted the employer's offer and rejected the union leadership's recommendation for a strike, that would have finished the union. The Harris Tories were certainly aware of the controversy within OPSEU about acquiring the right to strike. Moreover, they were confident that OPS employees would not be able to pull off a strike effectively. They believed that a large percentage of employees would go through the picket line and that heavy strikebreaking would cause the union to lose all credibility. The government pushed a comprehensive "strikebreaker" strategy both before and during the strike. A second objective of the government's hard-line strategy was to gain politically in the polls. Civil servants are not particularly popular, and the Tories were reasonably confident that striking civil servants would not get much support. They thought that public opinion would go their way - and every government likes a few extra points in the polls. A third objective was to send a message to the business community that the government was going to be tough with labour. Mike Harris had this to say on the first day of the strike: "It sends a signal out that the people of Ontario are determined to have a better business climate and they'll not be held hostage. In the long term it's a very positive message that we must send out."13 This gets to the very heart of the Common Sense Revolution: weaken the unions, weaken the rights of workers, create a friendly environment for business, and set the right tone for international investment. This had been an objective, in 1981, of Ronald Reagan's strategy against the air traffic controllers, which set a new tone in U.S. labour relations. The Harris government was in a hurry to deal with OPSEU. What it had not been able to accomplish with its legislation during the summer and fall of 1995, it hoped to achieve in negotiations. Fortunately for the Tories, collective bargaining for a new contract was underway. On Z2, November, at an early stage of the collective-bargaining process, the negotiators for the government applied for conciliation, the first step leading to a strike or lockout. This government had a plan: drive the union into a corner with bullying tactics, outrageous announcements, a comprehensive anti-labour legislative program, and unreasonable hard-to-swallow demands, and then force it into a situation where it would either take a strike vote or accept a watered-down collective agreement that would undermine OPSEU'S ability to represent its members. Push OPSEU to the wall, play very hard at the table, and then watch OPSEU fall apart. But this did not happen. A different script was in the offing.

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PART TWO

The Strike Emerges

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CHAPTER 4

Opposition to the Harris Government Outside today there are a few people who are trying to shake our resolve ... [but] no special interest group or lobby will stop us. No union-led demonstration will deter us. You and I know that those people parading on the streets today do not have a monopoly on compassion ... The difference is, the people in this room have the ideas to lead Ontario back to prosperity and to the rightful place in Canada that this province deserves. Premier Mike Harris, speaking to PC party members in Hamilton, 24 February 1996

On the same day that Mike Harris made the above statement1 - just two days before the OPSEU strike - 100,000 Ontarians marched in Hamilton to oppose the Common Sense Revolution (CSR). The radical ideas and programs of the CSR had led to the creation of an opposition in the government's first half-year. Millions of Ontarians saw the value of the public sector, the health-care system, social programs, and the social safety net, and they were not prepared to lose these institutions without a fight. They were not prepared to let the CSR carry out its program of undermining much of the social infrastructure of the welfare state that had been built up during the past half-century. The growth of the opposition to the Harris government in the six months after the June 1995 election was quite extraordinary. What started as a relatively small opposition of social protest groups in the summer of 1995 had evolved into a full-blown social movement by the winter. On a warm sunny day in July about a thousand demonstrators showed up at Queen's Park to protest cuts to day care.z Just seven months later, on a cold and wet wintry day, 100,000 Ontarians showed up in Hamilton to protest the CSR outside a Tory policy conference.3 In

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THE STRIKE EMERGES

the half-year following the Tory election, the space for extraparliamentary opposition had grown tremendously, and that space became more legitimate given the Tory style of governance. Even Christina Blizzard, a consistent supporter of the Harris government before and during the OPSEU strike, recognized the depth and meaning of the Hamilton protest: "Those were my friends and neighbours out there protesting. I may not agree with everything they had to say, but they are raising legitimate concerns about social policy and education."4 Two events furthered the growth of opposition politics in late 1995. On 6 December 1995 Alvin Curling, Liberal MPP for Scarborough North, staged a one-night sit-in at the legislature. Curling was protesting both the content of Bill 2.6 and the projected speed of its passage through the legislature. His protest tied up proceedings, and according to Ottawa Citizen journalist John Ibbotson, "it was 'an outrageous violation of the rules of the legislature.'"5 But Curling made his point. The next day the government agreed to hold public hearings on Bill 26. The second event was more sensational. About fifteen thousand protesters from across Ontario staged an Ontario Federation of Labour "day of action" in London on n December 1995.6 Supporters from as far away as Sudbury joined London activists and effectively shut down the city as an act of protest against the Common Sense Revolution. OPSEU was very much involved. The two chairs of the event were Elaine Ellis, an OPSEU activist in London, and Rick Witherspoon of the Canadian Auto Workers, who was president of the London and District Labour Council. The London Day of Action established a new benchmark for protest and for organizing opposition. The opposition could not simply be dismissed as the usual suspects from the labour and social protest movements. By the winter of 1995-96, it had become evident that the movement had very deep roots. It included anybody who was opposing any of the many facets of the Common Sense Revolution - and that was a lot of people. It was a reactive opposition, unlike many left-of-centre movements in the recent past. Like the OPSEU strike, its primary aim was damage control. Normally, political opposition from the left advocates change. The growth of government intervention - and of the public sector - in the decades following the Second World War was at the urging of progressive groups that favoured redistribution of the economic pie. Unions, progressive religious spokespersons, women's groups, environmental groups, community organizations, and groups representing the poor, the disabled, and minorities advocated social change, frequently through the New Democratic Party. They demanded a redistribution of wealth, universality, equity, social programs, collective bargaining, socialized health care, day care, environmental protection, access to

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55

education, and a social safety net. Many of these demands were realized in one form or another. As a result of the postwar compromise described in chapter i, labour developed a niche in the established order. The dues checkoff guaranteed unions a secure funding base, and various government boards and panels had moved labour disputes from the streets to more judicial settings. These developments had a conservatizing influence on the labour movement. But in the 19908 the labour structure was threatened. The Harris Tories and conservative politicians everywhere were bent on weakening the power of unions. Believing that labour was weak, the Harris government felt that it was no longer necessary to offer a compromise. Labour peace could be achieved for a lot less money and fewer concessions. The debate on how to mount the most effective opposition erupted inside the Ontario Federation of Labour. One view holds that improving the relative strength of labour's ally, the New Democratic Party, is the best strategy to sustain labour's strength. An alternate view maintains that protest and coalitions are the most effective ways of resisting right-wing politics. Exercising political power means showing neoconservatives that their program carries a price tag, which is labour peace: "No justice, no peace." Organizing days of action with social justice groups was the preferred strategy for the latter view. This distinction is also found in discussions about two types of unionism: the service model and the organizing model, sometimes called business unionism and social unionism. The service model sees the union as a service organization, much like an insurance company. Members pay dues, just as subscribers pay premiums. The union takes care of problems faced by members, who have little or no active participation. This model relies on the grievance and arbitration system to solve workplace problems. The organizing model sees the union animating members to organize internally around workplace issues. It encourages workers to deal with workplace problems directly and openly. It was not only union members who were taking direct action in late 1995. As noted above, a wide range of people throughout Ontario had joined the opposition to the Common Sense Revolution. They included day-care workers, students, the poor, gays and lesbians, teachers, chief justices, lawyers, doctors, and civil servants as well as unions. This opposition community was already fully developed by the time of the OPSEU strike. Indeed, the strike could not have happened without it. And the strike in turn fuelled the opposition. According to Gord Wilson, who was then president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, "The OPSEU strike was one of the first jets that

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THE STRIKE EMERGES

lifted the rocket off. As the London Day of Action fed the OPSEU strike, the OPSEU strike fed back the fight-back program." Linda Torney puts it this way: "The OPSEU strike is part of the history of opposition politics. If it were proven that their own employees would not take action, then much which came later couldn't have happened. The fact that it happened changed government thinking. It was part of the development of a culture of resistance. Metro Days of Action was strengthened by the OPSEU strike. The days of action were significant in the struggle against Bill i36."7 Torney was co-chair of the Metro (Toronto) Days of Action in October 1996. The link between unions and social protest becomes apparent during a strike. The chants, rallies, picket lines, and sense of fighting for justice attract other social activists. It is reasonably simple to make a connection between civil servants standing on a picket line and students protesting tuition increases, day-care workers protesting cutbacks, and poor people protesting welfare cuts. We were all fighting Harris from a "labour" point of view. The fact that we were spread across the province in a large civil service union and were working directly for Mike Harris gave us an engaging aura. It fed right into the stated ideology of our strike, that the strike was also about protecting public services. When I asked Joan Gates, a psychiatric nurse at Whitby Psychiatric Hospital, whether we had gone on strike in order to get a better collective agreement, she responded, "Yes, but there is also the social justice element. The Harris government is making big changes to the social fabric. We saw changes in programs for our patients, in welfare. People felt strongly. We felt that we had to take a stand." Being on strike places you in the tradition of protest and struggle. This is not like going to an arbitration panel to argue a classification dispute. Standing on a picket line for a hundred dollars a week is a very personal statement about your protest. The strike was about more than a better contract. It was about being against Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution. The opposition had given us a context. We gave the opposition a stage. "The strike set the pattern for Harris to slow down his agenda in Ontario. The OPS members did all workers a favour," observed Mik Oliver, a Cornwall corrections officer who was vice-president of OPSEU for eastern Ontario during the strike. Karan Prince, a strike leader in Renfrew, talked about selling the strike vote in mid-February: "We had no choice. With the Harris government, you had to vote for a strike." Terry Downey, who was on OPSEU'S Provincial Women's Committee, remembers leading a demonstration to the Board of Trade when Harris was speaking on women's issues during International Women's Week, the second week in March: "We brought down lots of people.

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57

We marched with our signs and got as far as the door. We were not prepared to leave. A woman from the Board of Trade spoke to us. I told her the Board of Trade should be ashamed how Mike Harris was screwing things up for women. She thanked us for the comments." Gord Wilson put it this way: "For the rest of the labour movement the strike was a direct challenge to Harris as an employer. It was also an attack on the government. It was a challenge to their ideology and agenda. Community groups joined us for that reason. You get a kick at them in a very tangible way." Less than a month after the Harris government took office, the opposition had begun to speak out. In anticipation of the spending cuts, a Queen's Park demonstration of one thousand protesters was held on 2,0 July. It was organized by day-care workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Eighty day-care centres in Toronto shut down for the day.8 The demonstration was supported by the Labour Council of Metro Toronto and the "Embarrass Harris" coalition, a group initiated at an Ontario meeting at the annual conference of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which had been held in Ottawa in June. According to Carolyn Egan, of the Steelworkers, "A number of younger women were at that meeting, where we established the coalition." The next major demonstration against the Harris Tories occurred on 2,7 September, the day of their first Throne Speech. About five thousand protesters representing public-sector workers, unionists, antipoverty groups, and the poor showed up. There was a confrontation with the Metro Toronto riot police, and the doors of the legislature had to be shut; some MPPs were locked out.9 The Ontario Coalition against Poverty (OCAP), which had joined the demonstration after marching all night from the constituency office of David Tsubouchi in Markham, arrived at Queen's Park with a thousand demonstrators. As John Clarke of OCAP remarked, "This event was particularly inspiring because it enabled us to mobilize as part of an emerging common front of union and social movements."10 For Carolyn Egan, the demonstration of 27 September was the beginning of the opposition coalition: "Civil servants came from Queen's Park, hospital workers, students, steelworkers, autoworkers from Oshawa, all came to Queen's Park. It was a foundation of the coalition that created the days of action." During the fall there were numerous opposition activities across Ontario, including the labour movement's demonstrations against Bill 7. But the opposition did not really gel until Bill z6 was introduced at the end of November. This bill set the stage for the massive restructuring and downsizing of health services, social services and municipal

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THE STRIKE EMERGES

government. According to Tom Walkom, there had not been widespread concern about the anti-union measures of Bill 7 or the cuts in the welfare cheques. But this bill brought the Harris Tories a lot of opponents: "Bill 2.6 was the first time they ran into trouble. There wer too many targets. They strayed over the line of being people who keep their word to people who are bullheaded." DAYS O F A C T I O N

Meanwhile, earlier that November, the "days of action" strategy had been adopted by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) at its 1995 convention. At the 1993 convention, the OFL had punished the Rae government for its Social Contract legislation by cutting all resources to the NDP until it repealed the Social Contract. But the Rae government had not repealed the Social Contract, and since that convention the Harris Tories had won election. This changed the tone of discussion at the OFL. Fingers pointed everywhere. The NDP was re-adopte as the "party of labour," and the OFL committed itself to a series of days of action, the first of which was to be held in London in less than a month. The London and District Labour Council was to be responsible for organizing the London Day of Action, and the OFL would supply full-time organizers to help prepare for the event. Days of action need to be seen within the context of recent labour history. The postwar compromise in the years following the Second World War was based on concessions from each side of the class divide. Employers gave labour a place at the table and automatic dues checkoff, while unions guaranteed labour peace and recognized the rights of management to manage: strikes could be held only at certain times and within a set of guidelines. A day of action is a small rescind of this agreement - a response to a partial rescinding by the government and employers. However, the Common Sense Revolution had revoked far more than the employer's commitment to respect collective bargaining. Its revoke had gone right to the big question of distribution of wealth and income. The decision by labour to join the ranks of community groups was a major move, though it had been leaning in that direction for a number of years. Labour's politics as recently as the 19708 was focused on collective-bargaining issues, particularly wage-control legislation, but by the mid-1980s it had entered into coalitions with other groups. The participation of women and minorities in unions, at all levels, contributed to this trend, as did the fight against the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the 19808. Labour joined forces with a wide range of groups to oppose free trade. The coalitions stuck. The labour move-

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59

ment was developing a new political side, which caused some friction with the NDP. Elaine Ellis, secretary of the London and District Labour Council, recalls learning about the selection of London for the day of action on ii December. "The call came on November 13. It was my son's birthday. He was seven. I became co-chair two days later at an emergency meeting of the Labour Council executive." Rick Witherspoon of the Canadian Auto Workers was chosen as the other co-chair. The choice was unanimous. There was gender balance and also a balance between public-sector and private-sector unions. However, another political balance was overlooked, since both co-chairs were from the labour movement. In future days of action, one co-chair was always a leader of popular and community groups, the Social Justice Community. Almost all the delegates at the convention had reacted very positively to the idea of launching this type of protest. Jim Turk, OFL education director and an organizer for the days of action, recalls: "In the face of being beaten down by Harris, people felt good about standing up. The days of action forced every worker in the community to defend why they were supporting it. There was no neutral position. The question was no longer academic." The London organizers had the opportunity to define just what a day of action meant. It turned out to be a sort of general strike. Unionized workplaces were shut down for the day as a show of strength. As Turk wrote, "Workers all over the city had stayed away from work to protest the government's policies and their employers' actions in supporting the government. Picket lines shut the General Motors' diesel plant, 3M, the post office, the municipal transit system, and many more in the public and private sector."11 The labour movement now had a visible and militant anti-Harris strategy. People who went to London thought it was both effective and inspiring. Everybody complained about the cold. But the act of standing and marching with thousands of other picketers in front of shut-down workplaces in bitter weather, bringing the city of London to a halt on a Friday in an act of protest (and defiance) against the Common Sense Revolution placed you firmly in Canada's long history of social protest. It wasn't Winnipeg 1919, but it was protest and it was militant. Our buses left Toronto at 3:30 AM to arrive in time for the early pickets. Marilou Martin, an OPSEU Executive Board member, organized the buses from Toronto: "I was shocked by the numbers of people signing up to go to London on buses leaving at three in the morning. The cut-off date was Friday, December 8th. I was still getting phone calls late Sunday evening." Martin said that London was good practice. "I will always remember London as the coldest day in

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history - arriving at 5:00 AM, in the pitch dark, and marching in the 35° temperature. It taught me a few things about the upcoming OPS strike, mainly how to dress." THE O P P O S I T I O N GROWS

The opposition picked up steam in the new year, with many more protests against the Common Sense Revolution, especially against Bill 2,6. Alvin Curling's sit-in on 6 December had resulted in public hearings for the bill. In Windsor, on 8 January, "the hearings got off to a stormy start as proceedings were punctuated by catcalls, jeers and hyperbolic rhetoric by many witnesses."11 At the bill's final reading, on 29 January, the galleries at Queen's Park were packed with opponents, and the speaker had to clear them a few times. Ester Reiter, a York University sociologist who was removed by Queen's Park security, remembers screaming at the Tory MPPS, "This is the end of democracy in Ontario!" There was a front-page picture in the Toronto Sun of Reiter being thrown out of the gallery. People called her the Sunshine Girl. On the third Sunday in January, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) organized a protest against the planned cutbacks in education. The organizers of the rally expected between ten and fifteen thousand teachers and supporters to show up. To everybody's surprise, more than thirty-seven thousand came to Queen's Park that day.13 A few days later, on 2,6 January, a group of protesters stage a sit-in at the constituency office of Mike Harris in North Bay. Five of them were charged with trespassing. Will Presley, the vice-president of the northeastern region of OPSEU, was one of the five arrested. "We've sent him six letters and he hasn't responded," he said. A second demonstration was held later in the afternoon to denounce the detention of the five.14 On 7 February, about two thousand students staged a demonstration at Queen's Park. This was part of a national student day of protest against cuts in education; the Ontario government was planning to cut $400 million from postsecondary education. The protest got out of hand, resulting in an estimated $10,000 of damage.15 Some of the protesters had managed to get inside the building, breaking the security lines, and four students were charged with "intimidating the legislature," a one-hundred-year-old law. It was the first time this law had been used against demonstrators.16 The charges were later dropped. Opposition came from some very unlikely places. On 17 February the three chief justices of Ontario wrote a letter to Attorney General Charles Harnick criticizing the cuts to the justice system. It went public. "It is apparent," it said, "that little, if any, consideration has been

Opposition to the Harris Government 61 given to the impact of the cuts which are being proposed on the ability of the justice system to serve the public, and the right of the public to have access to the courts. We would urge you to seek a moratorium on any cuts to the administration of justice until a proper analysis of the impact of any proposed cuts can be made. Unless this is done, we fear that the result may be chaotic." A week later Chief Justice Roy McMurtry, who had been attorney general under Bill Davis, again criticized the government for its proposed cuts.17 There is an irony here. The administration of justice is clearly identified as an essential service by the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act. During the strike, the government had several injunction applications against picketing at courts, arguing about the importance of maintaining the justice system. As the strike loomed ever nearer, we heard protest from an even more unlikely source - the police. Testifying before the legislature's finance and economic affairs committee on 15 February, leaders of police associations criticized the government for its handling of the negotiations with OPSEU and the possibility of using replacement workers in the event of a strike. Paul Walter, president of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association, stated: "I say this in the strongest possible terms: We are not going to compromise police officers' safety across the province for the negotiating position of this government." Walter warned that the level of political violence directed against the provincial government had risen and that there were not enough police officers to redeploy "for the purposes of furthering the government's bargaining agenda." He said that Dave Johnson and his colleagues should "have enough sense to sit down with OPSEU and negotiate a reasonable collective agreement." And he gave a strong warning against the use of replacement workers: "The use of replacement workers leads to violence, and based on our experience, this form of violence often leads to injuries for police officers. I urge you to consider the safety of our members, and not your political strategies, when you make these decisions." John Miller, chair of the Police Association of Ontario, told the committee that the province should pick up the costs of policing the strike.18 The second days-of-action protest was scheduled for Hamilton on 23 and 24 February, to coincide with a Tory policy conference. This time, one of the co-chairs was from a nonlabour group in recognition that social justice groups were now equal partners in the fight against Harris. Also, this was a two-day event, extending into Saturday, so that it could include unions that wanted to participate but did not want to be involved in an act of civil disobedience on the Friday. On Friday, 23 February, 25,000 people were in Hamilton to participate in the closures and rallies,19 and on Saturday 100,000 Ontarians

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came to tell Harris that they didn't like his Common Sense Revolution.20 We organized buses to take Toronto OPSEU members to Hamilton on both days. Thousands of OPSEU members were there, as were many people who did not belong to a union. As Jim Turk has pointed out, this could not be dismissed as another labour rally: "The Harris program was destructive of things important to the community, not just labour law." The opposition to Harris ran deep: unions opposed changes to labour law; teachers opposed cutbacks to the education system; students opposed cutbacks to postsecondary education and projected tuition increases; day-care workers opposed cutbacks in their centres; women's groups opposed cutbacks to pay equity programs; minorities opposed the dismantling of employment equity; poor people opposed the cutbacks to social assistance; injured workers opposed the cutbacks to workers compensation; judges opposed the cutbacks to the justice system; police opposed the hard line in bargaining that the government was taking with civil servants; and OPSEU members opposed cuts to the public service. The Hamilton days of action made a big difference to us. It seemed as if a strike by civil servants was receiving, if not an endorsement, then certainly a wink from a wide range of people right across Ontario. This made the idea of a strike by civil servants more plausible and less marginal, and it helped buoy our spirits when, two days later, the strike began and we had our first day of picketing.

CHAPTER 5

Collective Bargaining until the Strike Public sector workers cannot expect to avoid the realities of labour-market change that have applied to the private sector since 1990. Globe and Mail, editorial, 27 February 1996

The history of this round of collective bargaining between OPSEU and the Ontario government is long and complicated. Actual bargaining started in September 1994, and there were some important events even earlier. The process was begun under the Rae government and continued under Mike Harris. Negotiations for a new collective agreement with OPSEU were in progress when the Harris government was elected in June 1995. Not only did this provide the Tories with a way of eliminating some of the more irksome parts of the collective agreement, but it gave them the opportunity for a show of strength with the labour movement. The employer's collective-bargaining agenda with OPSEU was the mirror image of its political program for Ontario. The Harris Tories wanted to shrink the public sector, and they proposed to do so by privatizing much of it. The best way to apply market principles of competition to the public sector is to place it directly into the private sector, regardless of the consequences. As described in chapter 3, the government had cleared a major obstacle to privatization by legislatively eliminating successor rights for OPSEU with Bill 7 in October I995- 1 The collective agreement with OPSEU was its next target. According to Andy Todd, OPSEU'S longtime chief negotiator, the Harris government's dispute with OPSEU was based on its dislike of unions: "The Harris government saw the public-sector unions as standing in the way of their agenda. They wanted to eliminate them, starting with their own. They looked at union density rates in the pub-

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lie sector, the difference between Canada and the U.S. In Canada, public-sector union density is at 80 per cent. In the United States, it is 15 to 20 per cent. There are twenty-six right-to-work states." Before going into the details of the bargaining between OPSEU and Harris in the fall and winter of 1995, we should look at some principles of collective bargaining. Following that, we will examine developments in OPSEU before the bargaining. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Collective bargaining is the primary function of a union. Its aim is to achieve better compensation packages, better working conditions, and more job security for unionized workers. The union negotiates collective agreements for its members. A collective agreement is a contract,z recognized in law, that defines compensation and working conditions for a group of people who work for a particular employer. In Canada, collective bargaining is still organized along "Wagner model" principles, which were imported from the United States in the 19305. Workers are organized into bargaining units, each of which negotiates its own collective agreement with the employer. A recognition clause in the contract defines which occupations in that employer's enterprise are covered by the contract. An alternative model is collective bargaining by sector, where employers band together in an employer council, which negotiates for the sector. This type of bargaining is found in the construction industry. It is also found in OPSEU'S medical sector, which negotiates a collective agreement for paramedics and medical technologists with the Ontario Hospital Association, representing about forty hospitals. It is possible for one employer to have many bargaining units, each with its own collective agreement. Different categories of workers, usually defined by occupational type (such as clerical workers or technical workers) are grouped together into a bargaining unit for the purpose of collective bargaining. Each group negotiates its own contract with the employer. THE S T R U C T U R E OF B A R G A I N I N G IN THE ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE

In the Ontario Public Service, OPSEU represents seven distinct bargaining units.3 Six of these are separate and distinct units which are occupationally based (see table i). Each negotiates its own collective agreement for compensation issues (e.g., wages, overtime, stand-by, call-back, shift premiums, meal allowance, and hours of work). The

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65

Table 1 OPS Bargaining Unit (OPSEU): Occupational and Salary Data as of February 1996 Bargaining unit Administrative Population Average Pay

Correctional Population Average Pay Institutional & Health Population Average Pay Office Administration Population Average Pay Operations & Maintenance Population Average Pay Technical Population Average Pay

OPS total Population Average Pay

Classified

Unclassified

11,500

2,400

$49,666

$32,322

5,000

1,200

$44,867

$37,327

8,500

2,700

$41,819

$36,248

17,400

5,400

$35,248

$28,176

2,900

1,300

$34,333

$27,641

6,400

2,700

$41,068

$31,063

51,700

15,700

Total

Typical jobs

13,900

Computer professionals; elevator, health and safety, truck safety, and meat inspectors; securities investigators: property assessors; welfare field workers; biologists; planners; fire college and police instructors

6,200

Correctional officers, probation officers, workers in young offenders facilities

11,200

Ambulance officers, nurses, social workers, counsellors, speech therapists, laundry workers, dental hygienists, audiologists

22,800

Clerks, court reporters, driver examiners, secretaries, family support workers, office workers

4,200

Snow plow operators, cleaners, pilots, caretakers, mechanics, ferry operators, garage attendants, engineers

9,100

Construction technicians, electricians, machinists, laboratory technologists, commercial artists, forensic lab staff, auto mechanics

67,400 $38,840

Source: OPSEU, OPS Bargaining 1996, Facts and Figures, 3 February 1996

seventh is a central bargaining unit that covers all OPSEU employees in the Ontario Public Service (OPS). This central unit has a collective agreement covering working conditions and benefits. Some examples of working condition issues are the posting of vacancies, health and safety, seniority, layoff and recall, grievance procedure, and designated leave. Some examples of benefits are sick leave, vacations, holidays,

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THE STRIKE EMERGES

dental and drug plans, and parental leave. Each OPS member of OPSEU is thus covered by two collective agreements and two sets of negotiations - a unit contract and a central contract. The structure is further complicated by six different classes of workers represented by OPSEU in the Ontario Public Service: the classified, unclassified, regular part time, students, seasonal workers, and temporary workers. Classified workers are full-time workers with full access to the collective agreement, including job-security language, pensions, and benefits. In February 1996, 77 per cent of the bargaining units were in the classified service. Full-time unclassified workers are contractually limited employees, who have partial access to the collective agreement, no access to the job-security language, and very limited access to benefits. Regular part-time workers are part-time workers with limited job-security language and limited benefits. Seasonal workers are employed in a specific season, for example, Ministry of Natural Resource employees in provincial parks during the warmer months; they have limited access to the contract, including callback language for the following season. Students generally work for the various ministries during their summer breaks and co-op terms, co-temps are temporary workers on temporary assignments. All six classes are specifically identified by language in the collective agreement. It is a multitiered contract with varying levels of rights, benefits, and job security. Each employee is assigned to a classification that is determined by the work being performed for the employer. I work as a computer programmer/systems analyst and am classified as a systems officer. Corrections officers, laboratory technologists, nurses, ambulance officers, and many, many more all have their own classification series. Each series has levels based on skill and background. The relationship between the different levels of workers is the classification and salary assigned to that person's work. Each classification is designated to one of the six bargaining units, and the wage rate is negotiated by a bargaining team for that unit. Working conditions and benefits issues are negotiated centrally. The difference in rights and benefits between classified and unclassified employees is a recurrent theme in collective bargaining. The wages of unclassified employees are lower, sometimes substantially lower (see table i). This issue is frequently addressed by bargaining teams, often at the urging of the corrections unit. Unclassified employees pay the same dues rate - 1.325 per cent of gross salary - as classified employees do, yet they have fewer rights under the contract. The system of separate occupational compensation bargaining has deep roots in OPSEU. A bargaining structure evolved in which the nego-

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67

tiation of compensation issues was given to occupational categories rather than a central team. There are more than four hundred occupations in the OPS bargaining unit. OPSEU represents computer systems analysts, corrections officers, administrative assistants, probation officers, electricians, cooks, bailiffs, cleaners, social workers, ferry operators, elevator mechanics, security guards, child-care workers, mechanics, ambulance officers, environment inspectors, psychiatric nurses, health and safety inspectors, and hundreds of other occupations. Institutional workers, especially corrections officers, worry that their occupational concerns will get overlooked in a global system of bargaining, and in 1979 the corrections officers conducted an illegal two-day strike for the creation of their own unit, which they won. The preservation of occupational bargaining is driven by the view that different types of workers have different interests (in my opinion, an incorrect view). The strike of 1996 was over differences in the central agreement, primarily job-security language and pension issues. Compensation issues were not a factor in this round of bargaining. B A R G A I N I N G I N T H E 19908

The round of bargaining that began in 1994 took place under two very different governments: Bob Rae's NDP government (1990-95) and Mike Harris's Tory government (1995-). Both had downsizing agendas, but the Rae government, being social democratic, wanted to do the downsizing slowly and with minimal harm for employees. The same cannot be said for the Common Sense Revolutionaries. For them, it was a political exercise. They wanted us out as cheaply and quickly as possible. As Andre Bekerman, OPSEU'S senior staff negotiator, observed, "For the Tories it was important to be seen to be downsizing. For the NDP they had some pragmatic need to downsize. The Tories had a political downsizing objective. It's a different thing. The Tories wanted to show numbers of people and dollars. The NDP wanted to show streamlining. It would have been difficult but not impossible to do without involuntary layoff. The Tories had to do it. It was crucial for their process. They needed casualties. The public sector is the enemy. They have to set a tone." The economic crisis of the early 19905 took a deep toll in Ontario, and OPS bargaining was affected by the events in this stormy political period. We caught a first whiff of crisis in the 1992-93 round of bargaining, when the Rae government planned to cut five thousand jobs from the public service and hold the line on wages. The government had taken some political heat from the 5.8 per cent wage

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increase it had given us in 1991. Now we wanted job security. All the units bargained together as one team to be able to negotiate compensation and job security at one table. This was at the insistence of the government, which wanted the entire OPS agreement to be nego tiated at only one table - which meant that job security (a central table issue) was tied to wages (an occupational unit issue). OPSEU had reluctantly agreed. Tying wage negotiations to job-security issues was a departure from traditional practices, one that did not sit well with some OPSEU activists. When the NDP leadership was officially invited to the biennial convention of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) in November 1991, negotiations were already well underway for the 1992-93 collective agreement between OPSEU and the Ontario government. Some OPSEU delegates raised the question about "our boss" coming to a labour convention. OPSEU president Fred Upshaw managed to cool them down, but he was not prepared for a motion urging the OPSEU delegation to protest "global bargaining" by walking out when the NDP leadership appeared. We walked. This protest was really aimed at something deeper - the government's intention to cut five thousand jobs. We eventually bargained for job-security provisions that meant virtually no "involuntary" job loss. It included a job offer guarantee, which said that if you lost your job as a result of job relocation, divestment to an outside agency, or privatization, the government had to offer you another job. An entire system of redeployment and retraining made job security a reality for almost all classified employees. In exchange, we agreed to a lower than expected wage increase: i per cent in 1992. and 2 per cent in 1993, with COLA5 provisions for the second year. Ron Elliot, the chair of the negotiating team, said: "It was a conscious trade. We traded wages for good job-security language. We did tell them that we weren't going to accept a Mulroney-type settlement of o.o per cent that happened in the federal public service." Angelo Pesce, who became the chief negotiator for the Ontario government about a year later, agrees with Elliot: "The 1992-93 deal was a trade-off: job security for a low wage settlement." Three years later, a journalist was able to write that the job-security language in the collective agreement was "so ironclad that when the NDP government eliminated 5000 staff positions, only 46 were because of layoffs, and of these 20 were people who turned down other civil service jobs." 6 This contract was negotiated in January 1992.7 That collective agreement also provided for the joint development of a new classification system based on job-evaluation criteria. This is a technocratic way of determining classification and pay systems,

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69

but it makes comparison between jobs much simpler. Pay equity schemes use this methodology. Under this system, classifications are evaluated by categories such as skill, judgment, training, and responsibility. A job gets the number of points based on the level of each category required to perform the job, and the total points determine the job's classification. The classification is assigned to a wage grid, and this grid was to be negotiated in a future round of bargaining. Both parties agreed that the classification system needed an overhaul. In the spirit of social democratic bipartism, a joint approach was adopted. The Rae government did meet its aim of shrinking the OPS labour force, which in fact was reduced by more than five thousand between March 1992, and March 1995.8 On 31 March 1992 there were 86,608 full-time equivalents9 working for the OPS. On 31 March 1995 there were 81,2.51. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

The second whiff of crisis came a year later with the Social Contract. With the economic crisis knocking on Ontario's door, the Rae government had begun to focus on the provincial debt. The Social Contract was one part of a strategy of reducing public expenditures. It reintroduced and strengthened the principle of trading wages for jobs. But and this is a big "but" - it was outside the regular avenues of collective bargaining. The government was looking to save $2, billion annually from public-sector wages in fiscal years 1993-94, 1994-95, and 1995-96. It told us to negotiate the terms of those savings regardless of the expiry dates or terms of existing collective agreements.10 These would be overrides to existing contracts. If the parties failed to negotiate an agreement that produced the expected savings, legislation gave the employers the power to impose the terms, the so-called fail-safe provision. Accordingly, the Social Contract was passed into law in July 1993. The most disturbing feature of the Social Contract was that the principle of "lower wages for more jobs" was made in isolation by the NDP government without consultation and outside a collective-bargaining venue. Except in the case of OPSEU. OPSEU had already agreed to the principle a year earlier. This put the leadership of OPSEU into a bind both inside the labour movement and with the Rae government. As the second-largest public-sector union in Ontario, after the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), we opposed the overriding of collective agreements. However, we did agree with the Social Contract principle of lower wages for more jobs.

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OPSEU members in the Ontario Public Service were required to cough up $132.8 million for each of the three fiscal years. Savings were found primarily through unpaid days off (Rae Days), through suspension of merit pay increases, and by taking overtime payments in time off. This resulted in a temporary wage reduction of about 2 per cent. The principle of "joint management" was reinforced with the establishment of a productivity savings committee at every ministry. A sub industry of bipartite cost-savings committees appeared. Also, the joint approach to the development of the new classification system was reaffirmed. Many of us in the labour movement saw the Social Contract as a setback for the collective-bargaining regime that had been established after the Second World War. It was a setback for labour's legitimacy. Part of the postwar compromise had been the legal recognition of collective agreements as contracts. The Social Contract was a step backward for this recognition, and there was the fear that this would be the first step in a process to weaken collective agreements permanently. The Social Contract also confused the timing of our negotiations. The previous collective agreement between OPSEU and the Ontario government had an official expiry date of 31 December 1993. However, its actual expiration was made ambiguous by the Social Contract, which had an expiry date of 31 March 1996 (coincidentally the last day of the OPSEU strike). The Social Contract thus prohibited us from negotiating improvements in wages and benefits until April 1996. But in effect, the collective agreement now had two expiry dates, which were two years and three months apart. THE NEXT STAGE, I994~95

We acquired the legal right to strike under Bill 117, which was proclaimed into law on 14 February 1994, giving Ontario civil servants "fuller and freer" collective-bargaining rights.11 Not only could we now negotiate all collective-bargaining issues, including management rights, but we had the right to strike. Two months later, at the April 1994 OPSEU convention, OPS delegates had a two-hour debate on whether to proceed with bargaining or to attempt to have our contract extended. Three factors triggered this debate. First, we were still locked into the Social Contract for two more years, meaning that we could not negotiate increases in compensation or benefits. Second, the provincial election was to be held within the year, and we knew that the NDP mandate would most probably not be renewed and that the next government, Liberal or Tory, would be harder on OPSEU and on civil servants. Third, although we now had the right to strike, this did not seem the

Collective Bargaining until the Strike 71 right time to learn how to use it. After a long and heated debate, we voted to proceed with bargaining. After all, that's what a union does. On 18 and 19 June 1994 OPSEU had its central demand-setting meeting - the meeting at which the union puts together demands and priorities it will bring to the negotiating table. This was the last of a series of demand-setting meetings that had been held in the 267 OPS locals around the province. Formulating and compiling demands is a very cumbersome process in a bargaining unit of 67,000 members that stretches right across Ontario. There were demands for extending full rights and benefits for unclassified employees, for no-contracting-out language and no-layoff language, for extension of the job offer guarantee, extension of early retirement options, and for more employerpaid time off for union stewards. OPSEU'S negotiating team was elected at this meeting. When negotiating a new collective agreement, OPSEU has both elected members and professional union staff negotiate with the employer. The staff negotiates, while the elected team represents the membership. Under the new right-to-strike regime, essential services had to be negotiated first. This process began in the fall of 1994. As noted in chapter i, certain public services must be maintained during a strike or a lockout. The Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA) defines an essential service as one that is necessary to "prevent (a) danger to life, health or safety, (b) the destruction or deterioration of machinery, equipment or premises, (c) serious environmental damage or (d) disruption of the administration of the courts or of legislative drafting."" The act said that an agreement must be negotiated, or arbitrated, between OPSEU and the government to identify these services and their levels, and to provide bargaining-unit members who would otherwise be on strike or locked out. There must also be provision for emergencies. At our April 1995 convention we voted - at the urging of our negotiating team - that essential and emergency services workers would have to pay an additional 30 per cent of their wages in dues during a strike or lockout. As we were getting closer to the provincial election, there was growing apprehension about the poor condition of the union's strike fund, which was largely invested in the union's head office. The drop in property values in Toronto in the early 19905 had brought its value down to about $3 million, far less than the $15 million it had cost us. According to the negotiating team's chair, John O'Brien, "the team took it as something serious. We needed a strike fund." Also, there was the feeling that essential service workers should not draw full pay while those of us on the picket line were drawing a mere hundred dollars a week in strike pay.

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Almost everyone I interviewed agreed with the concept of essential services. Hospitals had to remain open; prisoners had to be looked after; snow had to be cleared from the highways; courts had to be in session; ambulances had to be running. These things are necessities, the essentials of modern society. According to the 1993 CECBA, essential services agreements must identify the essential services, set out how many employees in the bargaining unit are necessary to provide that service, and identify the employees who will be required to work during a strike or a lockout. A strike or a lockout cannot occur until an essential services agreement has been negotiated or arbitrated. For each side, the objectives of essential services bargaining is pretty clear. The union wants to be able to pull off a more effective strike and therefore wishes to minimize the number of essential services and their levels. The employer wants to limit the union's ability to wage a more effective strike and wishes to maximize the number of essential services and their levels. This caused some inconsistencies in the position that OPSEU normally takes when arguing for public services and publicsector workers. The same was true for the employer, in reverse. It took about sixteen months to negotiate seven essential services agreements: a central agreement outlining the general criteria, and six occupational-unit agreements. The central essential services deal was concluded on 2,9 June 1995, nine months after the negotiations had started and three days after the swearing-in of the Harris government. Significant aspects of this agreement were OPSEU'S right to inspect the work sites of essential services during a strike, the application of the old collective agreement for essential service workers, and the recognition of management offset when determining levels; for instance, if it is determined that four workers are needed to provide a service and a manager is able to do the job, then OPSEU has to come up with three essential service workers. Meanwhile negotiations continued on the six occupational-unit agreements. Both sides were new to essential services negotiations, and some ministries refused to cooperate. Diane Bull, OPSEU'S staff negotiator for the Institutional and Health Care bargaining unit, said that Management Board (MBS), the central branch of the OPS conducting the negotiations, was having a hard time with some ministries: "They resented being told what to do by MBS. They were not onside. Th Ministry of Health thought that all institutions should be declared essential. There was tension between MBS and the ministries. MBS was brutal on them. An administrator from Hamilton showed up at the talks with his own lawyer." According to John O'Brien, the government was making some pretty far-out proposals about essential services: "At one point they argued that the e-mail at the Ministry of

Collective Bargaining until the Strike 73 Environment was essential." Derek Miller, an OPSEU Executive Board member, said that the Corrections ministry was particularly difficult: "It refused to acknowledge that anybody might not be essential." Angelo Pesce also remembers the difficulties he had with the ministries: "The problem was the term 'essential.' People can't conceive that with the right to strike you can't gut it to the point that it's meaningless. If you have a strike, you have to have pain or there's no strike. We couldn't get that across. Of course, everybody is essential. Ministries wanted 80 per cent of everybody excluded. We knew that if we didn't have an effective strike then the whole experiment with the right to strike would fail. It became a time-consuming exercise to convince people. It was a complex piece of business." By late 1994, the OPSEU negotiators felt it was time to wrap up the essential services negotiations and move on to issue bargaining. The NDP had had its fourth anniversary as the government that September, so the provincial election could not be far off. But there was resistance to the move from both sides. "In the late fall of 1994, a reassessment was done," recalled Andre Bekerman. "From what was achieved so far we were close enough to target. We could spend another year before we ever get to bargaining and the gain would be marginal. We now had a strikable workforce. Another i or 2 per cent didn't matter. We took the approach that our early work had paid off and we were roughly where we wanted to be. Make deals and wrap this up. Teams who had previously been told not to let a single body go were now told there was another principle." According to Brian Mayes, "The longer it drifted, the less interested the government was in resolving it. The end of essential services negotiations would have meant real issue bargaining. But as we got closer to the election, the NDP lost interest." A LAST-MINUTE DEAL WITH THE RAE GOVERNMENT?

There was an attempt to jump-start negotiations with the Rae government during its last two months in office, when OPSEU made approaches to senior government officials to negotiate a deal. Bekerman recalls those events: "In March-April '95 there was talk of fast-tracking. We knew there would be a more right-wing government. The other side agreed to a formal exchange of collective-bargaining proposals for early April. It had the legal effect of binding the parties and would hopefully get the thing rolling. We exchanged some signals about a fast-track settlement. There was some exploration. We produced a boiled-down version of what could have been a settlement. It gave them a picture of what they could have by way of a settlement. It per-

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mitted a reduction of the workforce but virtually no involuntary layoff." When I asked Leah Casselman whether there had been a possible deal with Rae at the last minute, she said: "I thought we had a shot at it. They were desperate for votes. I met with O'Brien. He agreed and we met with [Brian] Charlton [chair of Management Board]. I was clear with Rae. The only way I could sell him to members was to have a contract. Charlton said they didn't have the wherewithal to deal with the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy realized that the NDP wasn't going to get re-elected and waited for the next government." Angelo Pesce thought there had been attempts to get a deal but wondered whether they were plausible: "The expectations on both sides were unreal. OPSEU saw it as opportunity to get gains. The NDP couldn't do that. Both sides misread what was possible. If OPSEU asked for the status quo, it would have been difficult for us to turn down. The NDP was still looking for some concessions. It would have left senior management in government unhappy with the restructuring expected." The deal with Rae never happened. Three explanations for this come to mind. First, Rae was still angry at us because of our anti-Rae protests during the Social Contract dispute. Why should he take heat from the public in the middle of an election for a last-minute contract with ungrateful civil servants? Second, our teams thought that they could and should get some gains in the collective agreement. Third, the bureaucrats put the process on hold in anticipation of a new government. At the beginning of June, OPSEU charged the government with bargaining in bad faith. Bad-faith bargaining is when either side breaks the rules of negotiations in such a way as to make bargaining unworkable - for example, by changing your bargaining position in the middle of negotiations. Our accusation, which was made in a Labour Board application dated i June 1995, stated: "On Tuesday, May 30, 1995, Angelo Pesce, Chief Negotiator for the Respondent [the Government of Ontario] read a prepared statement, approved that morning by the Council of Deputy Ministers, that while the Respondent's Committee had a mandate, they were obliged to have the next government review it after the election June 8th, which could result in an amendment to that mandate. He indicated that the Respondent's committee was therefore unwilling to bargain the substantive issue." In the same Labour Board application, OPSEU charged the government with circumventing OPSEU as bargaining agent; in the statement of facts, we accused the government of having "unilaterally commenced a process of restructuring programs apart from the formal collective bargaining process now ongoing. Furthermore, the specific ini-

Collective Bargaining until the Strike 75 tiatives were not developed in a joint manner."13 In the settlement of z8 September 1995, the government agreed that its negotiators had changed their position in bargaining. With regard to the "circumventing the union" charges, it agreed that OPSEU was indeed the bargaining agent. It also agreed to inform MERCS about restructuring initiatives. The settlement was hailed as a victory by the union.14 But by this time, "the government" was the Harris government, which had been elected in June. And OPSEU still had no new collective agreement. BILL 7 AND ESSENTIAL SERVICES

The essential services negotiations rolled on through the summer and fall, and by October 1995 most of them were complete. Technical Services and Administrative Services had finished their negotiations in the spring of 1995. Operations and Maintenance and the Office Administration group were completed in the fall. Most of the institutions in the Institutional and Health Care Unit also had completed their negotiations. However, there were a few outstanding disputes that had to be settled by the Ontario Labour Relations Board. As expected, Corrections was very slow; it did not complete its essential services negotiations until December. Dan Murphy, Corrections member of the central team, recalls: "Corrections ended up with about 30 per cent. The employer wanted 50-60 per cent. It took us a whole year of talks before we negotiated the first agreement at Sault Ste Marie." In early October the Harris government tabled Bill 7, which, among other things, removed the anti-scab provisions of the labour law. After three years, it was once again legal in Ontario for employers to use strikebreakers during a strike or lockout. This changed things for the essential services negotiations. After negotiating essential services agreements under a no-strikebreaker labour law, it was now legal to use strikebreakers; so should strikebreakers be included in the calculations for bargaining levels? Elaine Ellis, who was on the Administrative Services team, said, "With the change of the legislation, I think all essential services bargaining should have been stopped and thrown back at them. But there wasn't that type of militancy on the bargaining teams." However, OPSEU did raise the matter at the Labour Board, and on ii January 1996 the government agreed not to use strikebreakers in work deemed essential during a strike; strikebreakers would work only on nonessential work. (We realized later that the government was more intent on breaking the resolve of the union with strikebreakers than on providing the essential services.) Early in the fall, the government recruited a new chief negotiator from Hicks Morley, a well-established law firm that specializes in rep-

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THE STRIKE EMERGES

resenting employers in labour disputes. Douglas Gray, who was experienced in collective bargaining in the college system, took over as the government's chief negotiator. Terry Stinson recalls the first meeting with him: "He delivered the government's agenda: 'Practically nobody ever lost a job in the OPS. That doesn't fit with the Common Sense Revolution. We cannot have language that prevents the government from carrying out its mandate.'" Meanwhile, Bill 7 was passed through the Ontario legislature at great speed; in just three weeks, with no consultation, the Harris Tories reformed the Ontario Labour Relations Act in ways that did far more than undo the NDP reforms. The Tories used Bill 7 to change the collective agreement with OPSEU. When asked whether Bill 7 would affect the current OPSEU agreement, they said that "classification would no longer be a subject for rights arbitration."15 THE EMPLOYER TABLES ITS BARGAINING TO O P S E U NEGOTIATORS

PROPOSALS

By early October, the new government had sorted out its negotiating strategy and had started presenting proposals at the bargaining table. It tabled all its proposals between 3 October and 15 November. For those six weeks, its negotiators made proposals for changes on many aspects of the collective agreement. What follows is a partial list of their proposals, those that ultimately became strike issues: pensions, implementation of the new classification system, and job-security language. The strike was over the employer's proposals to weaken the collective agreement. In that sense it was a defensive strike. On 3 October the government negotiators tabled their proposal for the new management rights clause, which called for the inclusion of superannuation (pensions). Just one year after establishment of the OPSEU Pension Trust, which gave the union joint trusteeship of the pension plan, the government was proposing that pensions be a management right and that OPSEU have no say on these issues. On 15 November its negotiators tabled their proposal for changes to the new classification system. They proposed to design the new system unilaterally, with some consultation with the union. They also proposed that the government would implement the new system after its completion "no later than 31 May 1998." They were proposing to implement an entirely new wage-grid system for more than 67,000 unionized workers unilaterally, outside collective bargaining. On 15 November they also tabled their proposal for changes to the job-security language. The seniority system was to be weakened by

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allowing only one bump.16 The employee being bumped would retain only what was left of the bumper's six-month-notice period. They also proposed short-term layoff language that would give a manager the right to lay off an employee for as long as six months with little regard to seniority and with only two weeks' notice. They also proposed the removal of the job offer guarantee, a reduction in the notice period in large layoffs, and removal of all retraining rights for laidoff employees. OPSEU also tabled its positions between 3 October and 15 December, proposing more than one hundred improvements to the collective agreement. Some of the more significant proposals were for enhanced rights and benefits of unclassified employees, stronger antiharassment language, a limited management rights clause, reinstatement of arbitration for classification disputes, new job-sharing language, stronger health and safety committees, and paid educational leave. OPSEU agreed that the government would develop the new classification system but insisted that the wage grid must be negotiated. The most innovative OPSEU proposal was what OPSEU negotiator Andre Bekerman described as the job-security funnel: "Those who have seniority go voluntarily by being bought out or they go to a new job that the employer needs done. Other people will be laid off at the end of retraining and then go out to the work world more skilled. Start off with buyouts, then work your way through bumping, redeployment, retraining with a job, and retraining without a job." This would minimize the need for involuntary layoff, and for those who were laid off the impact would be softened with retraining and severance pay. Other job-security proposals made by OPSEU included no-contracting-out language, well-defined bargaining unit work, extension of the job offer guarantee, improved separation allowance, improved training language, job trading, early retirement enhancement, the reinstatement of successor rights in cases where work was outsourced, expanded bumping rights, and retraining. Barely a week later, on 2.2. November, and without any warning, the employer applied for conciliation. Conciliation is the step that must be taken in negotiations before moving to a strike or lockout. It is a declaration by one party that the sides cannot negotiate a collective agreement on their own and that a mediator is required. Bekerman recalls saying to the employer team, "I am not aware of any breakdown in the process. I see only civil and proper exchanges. An explanation can be that one side wants to abandon the process and move to a strike or lockout. On the evidence in front of me, I have to conclude that."

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THE STRIKE EMERGES THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

The truth of the government's intentions came out in that final week of November 1995. The application for conciliation was one of three pieces of bad news for OPSEU that week. On 2.9 November the government tabled Bill 26, with its implications for the pensions of older civil servants with long service who were facing layoff; and that same day it issued the economic statement that had such adverse implications for civil servants, including the layoff announcement of 3,500. The government's script was unfolding. Take away OPSEU'S successor rights and pension-bridging rights through legislation. Keep the right to strike, but change the rules to weaken the union's ability to pull off a strike. Delegislate Rae's anti-scab legislation. Drive a very hard bargain with the union. Create an environment of fear with employees by talking about privatizing their work and instituting huge layoffs. Table demands that would weaken the collective agreement beyond recognition. Catch OPSEU off guard, as the government negotiators did with their coup de grace on 22 November when they applied for conciliation prematurely. Speed up the process. Take advantage of the union's tardiness. (We weren't ready, and they knew it.) They were paving the way for a showdown with OPSEU. They believed they could more likely achieve their collective-bargaining goals with a strike/lockout showdown than with an arbitrator. They also believed that they could score some political points in a showdown with OPSEU. Their plan A was to bully employees into accepting an employer's offer that would weaken the collective agreement and undermine OPSEU'S ability to function as a union. If plan A failed they had a plan B - to crush OPSEU in a strike. As the government, they had the power to change the rules to make it as hard as possible for OPSEU to pull off a successful strike. Harry Glasbeek described it this way: "The Conservative government of Mike Harris always meant to manoeuvre the Ontario Public Service Employees Union into a strike position."17 Thomas Walkom also recognized the government's strategy, pointing out that the legislative rollbacks for civil servants in Bills 7 and 26 "threatened not just the civil servants but their very ability to act collectively, their union itself."18 BACK TO THE L A B O U R BOARD

The government was already at the Ontario Labour Relations Board seeking an end to essential services negotiations by 13 January.19 As noted above, conciliation and the completion of essential services negotiations are legal prerequisites for a strike or lockout in the Ontario

Collective Bargaining until the Strike 79 public sector. It was clear to us that the government was laying the foundation for a showdown, but the union needed time to mobilize the membership. Since the government could have forced a contract vote and a strike or lockout situation by mid-January, we went back to the Labour Board for a ruling to buy time and to have one vote.20 Andre Bekerman describes the strategy he followed: They already had an application complaining that we were dragging our feet in essential services. This worked in our favour. It proposed the remedy that they be given the right to determine essential services on our behalf. That was so extreme that no labour board would consider it. They did a presentation about how bad we were. I told the chair that it was the government that was behaving badly. Ministries weren't delivering information. They had taken the position that everybody was essential. We had already signed five deals at this point. Then I introduced the conciliation and how they were trying to force us into a lockout. It's all one piece. I talked really straight. We cut a deal - that they wouldn't bring in a conciliator until January; that conciliation would last until the end of January. The earliest for a no-board would be after that. We could break off faster if we wanted, but they couldn't. We also got the onevote. The chair, Janice Johnston, made it an order of the board.21 NEGOTIATIONS DURING CONCILIATION

Conciliation began on 8 January. Paul Gardner from the Ministry of Labour was assigned as the conciliation officer, the mediator. On 25 January the government made a small move. It dropped its demand to include pensions as a management right. On 30 January Andy Todd, OPSEU'S chief negotiator, joined the talks. At the same time OPSEU made a huge move, dropping ninety-five demands from the table and reconfiguring its bargaining proposal into five packages: job security, pension protection, the right to negotiate the wage grid for the new classification system, equal treatment for the unclassified, and inflation protection. Bekerman summed up the differences this way: "There had to be a solution for those people being divested. That was the crucial issue. We made them an ultimatum and never got an answer. If they had given us the right answer we could have accommodated the other stuff. We were looking for a parallel to successor rights." On 2 February the employer made some moves on its proposal. It introduced a second bump, but the employee doing the second bump would need at least five years of service. The government negotiators also reduced the short-term layoff from a maximum of six months to three months; and on the new classification system, they changed the

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date of implementation of the new wage grid from 31 May 1998 to i January 1999, the proposed expiry date of the new contract. OPSEU CALLS FOR A S T R I K E VOTE

On 4 February, to the surprise of many people, OPSEU made its first assertive move by applying for a "no-board" report and calling for the government's "best offer." The government had forty-eight hours to produce it. This was the first time that OPSEU had upped the ante in the dispute with the Harris government after six months of aggressive behaviour by the government. Having had two months to mobilize members, we were feeling confident (the mobilization is described in the next chapter), and we set the strike vote dates for 15, 16, and 17 February. I asked two mediators their opinion of OPSEU'S calling for the strike vote. Paul Gardner said, "It's highly unusual, given the history of OPSEU'S bargaining history with no right to strike." John Mather agreed: "It's unique for both parties. They previously had arbitration. Now they have the right to strike. I wasn't privy to the caucuses, but I imagine that both sides were trying to size up the strength of the other side. They were going down a new path. Management must be wondering how much support the union has in the membership." The government had two days to come up with an offer for the members to accept or reject. In such a situation, a rejection vote means that the union can return to the table strengthened with a strike mandate. An acceptance vote means that the government's offer becomes the new collective agreement and that is the end of bargaining; the members, in effect, will have ratified the government's offer. There is an art here. The government must offer the union members something to decrease the chance of a strike vote. However, they can't give them too much or what's the point of all the fuss? The government unveiled its "best offer" on 6 February, the offer on which OPSEU members were to vote. The government had made some moves. On job security it had added language about some effort to place employees with privatized work; on pensions it had extended the period that laid-off workers could contribute to the pension plan, thereby allowing some laid-off workers to reach their pension. The offer also opened up the possibility of providing part-time work, if available, to laid-off workers, and this allowed them to continue paying pension premiums for a maximum of 2.5 years. In exchange, they would have to forgo their severance package. The big move was in severance pay. The government doubled the severance entitlements to two weeks for every year of service; it tried to buy the strike vote with the

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severance offer. But by no means did this offer restore the successor rights or pension bridging that had been removed by legislation. Angelo Pesce had strong feelings about mixing collective bargaining with legislation: "As long as OPSEU was trying to change the legislation, forget it." Yet in its very feeble way, the offer addressed the issue of pension-bridging rights for laid-off workers. The weak gesture to try to facilitate transfer to the new employer did address the issue of successor rights. The union leadership rejected the employer's offer on 7 February and asked the membership for a No vote. OPSEU was still looking for a labour adjustment program that included a buyout package along federal government lines: thirty-nine weeks for junior employees and fiftytwo weeks for those with five years or more. OPSEU was also looking for pension-protection language in the collective agreement, as well as the restoration of pension bridging; it wanted rights for unclassified workers and protection against inflation; and it wanted the new wage grid for the new classification system to be determined through collective bargaining.12 There was some discussion before the strike vote that OPSEU should have been more adamant about fighting the downsizing and privatization in the collective bargaining. Striking for the terms of exit or terms of divestment was not good enough, some said. Leah Casselman disagrees with this criticism: "That would have meant an illegal strike. I don't think that the members would have done that at that point. I don't think they believed that the government would be as devastating as they have been. Nobody expected to see a Reform government in Ontario doing that kind of damage. It's pollyannish. But we did convince them to go on a legal strike." Ron Elliot did not think it fair criticism either: "If you get laid off in a private-sector factory, the union doesn't fight for your job." However, he was critical of the team for giving up the job offer guarantee which his bargaining team won in the 1992-93 contract: "The team in 1996 gave up the JOG language, and that was a mistake to do before the strike. It's a lot easier to strike for existing language in the collective agreement. Once it's in a contract it's hard to take away. Giving that up in bargaining while knowing there's going to be a strike is a huge mistake. I never understood the rationale of the team giving that up before the strike. If you're going to go on strike, why not strike for everything?" Personally, I am not convinced that you can separate the opposition to downsizing and privatization from the language in the collective agreement. The Tories have a point that a strong collective agreement gets in the way of their plans. As the Globe and Mail observed, rather

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than opposing downsizing in principle, OPSEU opposed it in practice: "Cut the size of the public service if you want, the union says, but we'll make it very difficult."13 The reality of the right to strike had hit home for OPSEU members much faster than expected. The delegates at the convention in 1994 had thought that was the wrong time to learn about the strike weapon. It had taken a hard-nosed employer such as Mike Harris to make the strike a reality. This was the right time to learn about going on strike. The story of the mobilization for the strike vote and the strike itself is given in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 6

OPSEU Builds for the Strike

The members dug down and found a place that they didn't know existed, and that's what made them vote for a strike. Elaine Ellis, local 102,, London

OPSEU rapidly transformed itself into a union preparing for a strike. The watershed had been those eight days in November, from the twenty-second — when the government applied for conciliation before the union had finished tabling its demands - to the twenty-ninth, when the government tabled Bill 26, undermining pension rights for OPS workers, and on the same day presented its economic statement announcing substantial cuts to ministries and jobs. All this set the alarm bells off in OPSEU. Once we accepted the likelihood of a showdown, we had to learn about the strike weapon. Bargaining strength is based on the support of the membership, so the union and the government compete for their loyalty. Beginning in December, the focus of the bargaining dispute shifted from the bargaining table to the membership. Members of the union watched very closely. Who could they trust? Who was telling the truth? To which star should they hitch their wagon? Did they have confidence in the union to deliver a strike? Could they believe this government? If the union did not have the support of its membership, the employer would easily roll over it. Ironically, the behaviour of the employer drove this point home to the membership much better than we could have done. It was the behaviour of the government that pushed the union into an effective mobilizing machine. OPSEU and its members were speaking to each other in a way that had never happened before. Meanwhile, the government underestimated the membership's ability to understand job security and pensions, and it underestimated OPSEU'S ability to organize around these issues.

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Full mobilization did not really start until December. Everything before then was tentative, hit and miss. This was a reflection of the history of OPSEU, for the union had previously handled collective-bargaining disputes through an arbitrator; it had not needed to mobilize its members. Everything changed in 1994 when we gained the right to strike, and now we had a government that was pushing for a showdown with us. But until the very last minute, there was hope that the government would change its approach. OPSEU members had an institutional memory of getting steady improvements in wages, benefits, and rights from the government. Labour relations may have been rough from time to time, but they eventually returned to a state of normalcy. Many members, such as Karan Prince, the local president in Renfrew, who "didn't trust or like Harris," expected much the same thing to happen again: "After we voted for the strike we thought there would be some magic coming out of the air, that our ministries would love us again. There would be some kind of tooth fairy. The old OPS would return." She was wrong. WHY THE OPSEU MOBILIZATION SUCCEEDED

At the beginning of the mobilization, in the early fall of 1995, talk of a strike seemed romantic and adventurist. According to our first poll, only a simple majority of the membership was aware that we even had the right to strike. Much of the membership still harboured "civil servant" hopes that somehow everything would work out for the best. The level of "union consciousness" was very low. The political and labour consciousness of the membership was very much a product of the decades-old arbitration system. In view of this situation, how did we achieve such a successful mobilization? It is difficult to assess all the factors, but I can pick out four that are particularly significant. The first was the effective use of internal organizing techniques. In late fall, when the OPSEU leadership and senior staff realized that a strike was imminent, we also realized that the only effective way to mobilize for a strike was to impart self-organizing tools to the membership. A second ingredient was OPSEU'S effective use of technology. Polls of the membership taken between July and December 1995 ensured that OPSEU'S mobilizing machine was in tandem with the sentiments of the membership. Meanwhile, the effective and aggressive use of the government's fax system as a broadcast technology ensured that OPSEU'S view of events reached all members, right at their workplace. A third ingredient was timing. Even though OPSEU did not have control over the timing of Bills 7 and 26, these measures contributed to

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members' fears of losing their jobs and pensions, and thus facilitated the mobilization effort. The timing of the London Day of Action and the Hamilton Days of Action also helped our mobilizing efforts, and OPSEU took full advantage of them. The fourth and possibly most significant ingredient was the attitude, determination, and arrogance of the government. The Harris government thought it could get away with anything when it came to OPSEU and the membership of the union, but its approach backfired. When cornered, even civil servants will defend themselves. OPSEU had to prove to the membership that it was capable of engaging in the struggle. The mobilization effort provided that proof. T H E F I R S T P O L L , LATE J U L Y

1995

OPSEU commissioned three polls of the membership to test where the members stood on collective-bargaining issues and how far they would be prepared to back the union in the event of a showdown with the government. The polls were organized by Frank Rooney, head of OPSEU'S communications department. "We decided to do the polls in June, right after the election," he explained. "The working hypothesis was that in June there would be a significant 'head in the sand' phase, a 'not me, I'm not worried' attitude. We needed to know the transition points when the sentiment would become fear. We needed to know the right words that would transform fear into anger and conviction that 'we could do something.' We anticipated three polls, timed for July, October, December" (see appendix D). All three polls were conducted by Viewpoints Research in Winnipeg. In the July poll, 400 OPSEU members right across the province were questioned. We received the results in August: 37 per cent had voted for the Tories in June, less than those who voted for them provincially; 3 5 per cent agreed with the Common Sense Revolution, while 52, per cent disagreed with it; 43 per cent thought they would be laid off, and 31 per cent thought their jobs would be privatized. The big surprise was the amount of support for a strike, said Rooney: "Fifty-two per cent indicated they would strike to keep the current job-security provisions. We expected 30 to 3 5 per cent. We were flabbergasted, notwithstanding the high level of support for Harris. People who thought they would lose their jobs were more likely to support a strike." Otherwise, the poll did not surprise Rooney: "Sixty per cent had their heads in the sand. They didn't see a significant threat. However, we were confident that we were proceeding from a basis of support for a strike. Fifty-eight per cent knew that we had the right to strike. That's a good result. We never really did education on the right to strike."

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THE STRIKE EMERGES BARGAINING COUNCILS

The OPSEU leadership planned that the initial mobilization drive of the membership would come from the bargaining teams, and it asked the teams to establish bargaining councils in every local. The bargaining teams were called to Toronto in August for training on how to speak to locals about bargaining. Every local was asked to organize its own bargaining council. Meanwhile, the central union would keep track of which locals were establishing bargaining councils. This approach used a model that places the bargaining teams at the centre of the action. Bargaining team members speak to locals. Locals then establish their bargaining councils, using delegates who attended the June 1994 provincial demand-setting meeting (described in chapter 5). Each local establishes a communications structure, which could be a phone tree, a newsletter, a workplace, or a local meeting. The aim is to reach every local member through an "information steward" who becomes the bearer of information on bargaining, and to establish a two-way communications network. From the centre, bargaining teams report to the local bargaining councils. The local bargaining councils then use the communications structure to report to members. The reverse also applies. Members can express concerns or ask questions through their local information steward, and this gets sent on to the bargaining team. The bargaining teams began to promote the bargaining councils in September, speaking at local meetings throughout the province. They received help from the union's head office, where the collectivebargaining department had prepared two videos. A mobilization room was established at head office to keep track of the progress of every local. However, everyone did not approve of this strategy. Will Presley, OPSEU vice-president for northeastern Ontario, complained, "The bargaining councils worked alongside but not with the steward body. A union is built through the steward body." Elaine Ellis of the Administrative Services had a different complaint: "The length of time spent on essential services hurt us. That was all we could report." In fact, there was little to report on bargaining until November, when the government tabled its job-security language. There were indeed problems. OPSEU bargaining practices were very much a product of decades of arbitration. There had never been the need to get the membership involved. Asking team members to alter this pattern was expecting too much. Demand-setting meetings were opportunities for delegates to express unrealistic wish lists for which they did not have to take responsibility; after the delegates returned to their locals, no more was expected of them. OPSEU really couldn't

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expect much from bargaining team members and delegates who had attended a demand-setting meeting more than a year before. Another problem was the size, scope, and complexity of the OPS bargaining unit: 67,000 members, with more than 400 occupations in 18 ministries across Ontario. Establishing communication structures was an enormous task. Paul Bilodeau, who works in OPSEU'S campaign department, is a veteran of contract campaigns at the Toronto Star and in the potash mines of Saskatchewan. He was well aware of the problems: "I knew that we'd have to do a major mobilization and communications job. We started pushing to get some effective machinery in place. This is part of the problem with a big union. It takes a real degree of push from the staff, in tandem with the activists, to get the resources required. Early in the fall we were doing an ad-hoc strategy, trying to understand the resources that we would need and trying to push the leadership." Bilodeau believed that the bargaining council approach did not go far enough: "We had to penetrate much deeper. We have an activist base of about one to two thousand people. We had the bargaining teams and alternates setting up information structures and bargaining councils. We were only getting a zo to 25 per cent penetration. What you need is to make the employer think that you were going to go the whole hog. I've always believed that was the main thrust of bargaining. It's a psychological game where you make the employer think you're going to take them to the wall." OPSEU FAX AND THE S T R I K E M A N U A L

Early in the fall, OPSEU set up a communications medium called OPSEU fax to communicate more effectively and more urgently with locals. At first, the fax was sent only to local presidents. The first issue appeared on 27 September with the huge headline "You Are Not Alone." OPSEU fax had two purposes: to inform locals about the latest outrage of the government and to tell them what OPSEU activists were doing to protest these outrages. The issue of 27 September, for instance, reported on the Throne Speech that had just been given, and the accompanying protest on the lawn of Queen's Park: "An estimated 7,000 angry people, including hundreds of OPSEU members, staged a loud noonhour demonstration that shook the walls of Queen's Park."1 That issue also reported on a demonstration protesting the threatened privatization of public laboratories. Twenty-one issues of OPSEU fax were produced before the strike. Its tone reflected the growing militancy of the mobilization efforts. At first it was used simply to inform locals about the unfolding program of the

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Common Sense Revolution and opposition activity. As time passed, we read reports of layoffs, hospital closures, boot camps, privatization threats, Bill 7, and the OPSEU court challenge to the cabinet's order to limit pension bridging. We also read about OPSEU demonstrations and opposition protests across the province. The OPSEU fax audience expanded with each issue. No longer was the fax sent only to local presidents; the issue of 22 October went to all members for whom OPSEU had a fax number. (This was the first issue to carry the OPSEU fist with the "No Justice, No Peace" slogan.) By early January, each issue was being sent to every government fax machine. The strike manual also was prepared in the early fall. It conveyed the message of preparedness: "Strike preparation lets the employer know that we are serious about our contract. Management may attempt to force us into a strike if they think we are not prepared. And we can't win any strike unless we are well prepared." The rest of the manual consists of guidelines, instruction, and tips on how to get ready. The approach is based on internal organizing techniques. Bilodeau applied these principles when writing the manual: "I wrote the strike manual in September and October. It expresses the theory how strike preparation aids you in mobilization. Everybody has a task. It is very taskoriented. You can't have internal organizing for no reason. It has to be specific and people must focus on specific things." The manual describes very specific tasks for organizing the membership for a strike: establishing a local bargaining council with information stewards; setting up a communications network, such as OPSEU fax and Table Talk,2 to distribute information about bargaining; calling local and workplace meetings to show union-made videos and to talk about bargaining; selecting and training the essential services workplace representatives; setting up a finance committee; preparing a budget; planning for the distribution of strike pay; setting up a strike-duties committee; organizing picket lines, with rosters, duties, locations, and times; planning for child care during a strike; setting up a strike headquarters; and creating a scrounge committee. The strike manual appeared in the late fall. It was one of the first tangible indications that OPSEU was moving towards strike action. It asked locals to organize events immediately: to organize workplace actions; organize a demonstration or rally in the community; contact the local media; show support for the bargaining teams; and wear buttons or ribbons at work. The most important thing was to organize strike activities publicly - not to be subtle, but to be very open, making sure that your manager and director knew what you were doing.

OPSEU Builds for the Strike T H E S E C O N D P O L L , LATE O C T O B E R

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1995

OPSEU commissioned its second poll of the membership in late October. Again 400 members were polled. There were some big changes from the July poll. Agreement with the aims of the Common Sense Revolution had dropped to 28 per cent, and 69 per cent now disagreed with it. Awareness of the union's right to strike had jumped to 62 per cent. The number of people who thought they would be laid off or privatized also had risen considerably: 66 per cent of those polled thought they would lose their jobs if the government went ahead with a layoff of 13,000; 78 per cent thought they would be out of work if the layoff was 2,0,000; and 50 per cent believed that their jobs were going to be privatized. "By late October the fear factor had set in," noted Frank Rooney. "We anticipated that. The announcements in the early fall about the number of people that would be laid off as a result of the July 2ist financial statement had an impact: 'Wait a minute this is me we are talking about.' People who thought they were safe because they were essential went down. We counted on the government to combat that feeling of security. And they delivered." The percentage of those prepared to strike remained almost the same as in the July poll - it was 53 per cent. But this jumped to 64 per cent when the interviewer pointed out that because of Bill 7, the only protection they now had was the collective agreement. Rooney saw strategic value in this response: "We learned that the Bill 7 argument had weight. We started doing Bill 7 stuff big time." The October poll also asked members what action they were prepared to take to support the bargaining teams. Most were prepared to wear a button or send a fax to Management Board, but there was little interest in a lunchtime picket or a day of reflection. Nevertheless, Rooney was encouraged by the results of the poll, while admitting that there was still much to be done: What we found in the second poll was that the course of events from July to October firmed up negative beliefs of Harris. But there was no increase in the confidence they could do anything about it. Given OPSEU'S years of inaction since 1911, it would be foolish to believe that there was some pool of experience that many people would draw from or that they could make a difference. We were counting on the alternative being far worse, too horrible to contemplate. The polling influenced the bargaining strategy. Keep their bad stuff on the table for as long as possible. We knew that we needed the vote. By the end of December it was clearer. We knew the government's bargaining proposals.

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THE SACG IS B O R N

In the late fall of 1995 the union adopted a strike-organizing model that relied on the full resources of the union - the steward body, the leadership, and the staff - and focused on mobilizing the membership for a strike. At the time, OPSEU had 450 locals right across Ontario, 267 of which had membership in the Ontario Public Service. Each OPSEU local has a political leadership, the local executive committee, which is elected every two years. Depending on the bent of a local's leadership, it emphasizes the service model or the organizing model of union leadership. As described in chapter 4, the service model emphasizes preparing grievance material for arbitration handling, and electing local representatives to wider union functions, such as the annual convention and meetings with employer representatives at a local employer (employee) relations committee. The organizing model emphasizes communicating with the membership and organizing campaigns around workplace issues. While the service model emphasizes unionism with and through the labour relations system, the organizing model emphasizes political education and the organization of the membership. Mobilizing for a strike is the ultimate expression of the organizing model.3 Administratively and politically, OPSEU is divided into seven geographic regions. Activity in the region is seen as decentralized activity. Centralized activity is directed from the head office in Toronto. The political leaders of a region are the Executive Board members (EBMS), who are elected every two years. Each of the seven regions had four EBMS at the time of the strike.4 OPSEU maintains service area offices in nineteen municipalities, and these regional offices are, of course, in closer contact with the wider membership than the union's head office is. Union staff representatives are stationed in each regional office, and each staff representative is assigned to service several locals. They thus have direct contact with the local leadership. In the fall of 1995 the union instructed each regional office to establish a Service Area Coordinating Group (SACG). The SACG became the political as well as administrative building block of strike preparations and ultimately of the strike; it organized for the strike vote, and during the strike it acted as a liaison between the picket lines and the union. Each SACG included EBMS, staff representatives, and OPS local presidents, who were serviced out of that regional office. The regional office was part of the OPSEU presence. Local leadership and activists used its rooms for their meetings, and the EBMS usually did so too. A regional office is the "union hall." The SACG suited Will Presley, who lives and works in North Bay:

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"Our SACG had all the local presidents, not just EBMS and staff reps. In our area we had a member on a bargaining team who dropped out of sight. The move away from the bargaining council approach was warmly received." In spite of this move, both the strike manual and the SACG still encouraged local bargaining councils. The main difference was at the centre of the strike mobilization campaign. The centre had moved from the bargaining teams to the SACG, because the SACG not only embodied the political leadership and the staff, but it had access to wider resources. As Paul Bilodeau pointed out, the political and administrative functions of the SACG were intertwined: The SACG came as a result of the essential services agreements. The staff reps and the local presidents were forced to take a look at all the local work sites. Up to that point, it wasn't done. We didn't know how many work sites we had. You had to have a work site rep where essential services agreements were in place. That was a significant part of the build-up. That enabled us to go out and talk to the reps and the local presidents, and with that you can talk about a strike structure. SACGS were up and running in December. We had the meetings with the reps about essential services. SACGS were already in the strike manual. They had already been invented, and now they took on a reality. The SACGS in each of the regional offices were mandated/instructed to get things going in the locals. We knew the sentiment was there. We had the polls. It was now a matter of setting up the machine. We had about six weeks, and we did it.

By the last week in November we knew that we were on a collision course with the government. As described in chapter 5, we bought precious time at the Ontario Labour Relations Board. There was a pivotal meeting on 4 December with OPSEU president Leah Casselman, the bargaining team, and senior staff from collective bargaining, campaigns, and communications. Bilodeau, who was at that meeting, recalls: "We discussed the employer going to conciliation. I said that there had to be a tandem between strike preparation and mobilization along with the bargaining in order to wake up the membership. We needed the final go-ahead from the president to get all hands on deck. We had some things in place, but we needed more. It was going to be a big show." THE L O N D O N DAY OF ACTION,

II DECEMBER 1995

For the purposes of organizing for our strike, the OFL'S London Day of Action could not have been timed better. We saw London as an ideal

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opportunity to build for the strike as well as to oppose Harris. Pam Doig, an OPSEU staff organizer who worked on the London action for over a month, said, "The London Day of Action was significant. It gave us the ability to say to the membership that OPSEU can hit the streets. It was okay. It showed that if you have the guts, the leadership, and the resources, you can make anything happen." The organizing really paid off. About fifty OPSEU buses arrived from all over the province. Bilodeau, who also worked on the London Day of Action, was particularly impressed: It was significant - all the staff reps were there. On the night before, the OPSEU staff was going to shut down a gas plant at 9 PM just outside London. Twentyfive or thirty staff showed up. We stood there for two hours and kept the shift out. It was there that the staff reps understood what this was about - that militancy fed right into the OPS strike. It opened it up. We kept the shift out. It put us in good stead for the big strike. We learned what we needed for the picket lines. It was the first time we did picket training in anticipation of the strike. I wrote a piece for picket captains. It was piloted in London about four days before December n, mainly nuts and bolts stuff. December n gave us the confidence that we could go out to the field, to the staff reps. They went back home after London ready to set up strike committees in every local.

Elaine Ellis, co-chair of the London Day of Action, was also on one of the OPS bargaining unit negotiating teams, and she too recognized the event as a catalyst: "It was about that time that OPSEU was starting to realize that we had to take on the government. How did the two merge? The day of action showed me what we really could do. The will and strength were there. It changed my mind about where we were heading in bargaining. We were coming to a showdown. We didn't know if we had the support of the membership. Seeing that happen in London made me believe that the OPS could do it as well." Clarence Lehr, an enforcement officer with the Ministry of Transportation in Hamilton, said it for everyone: "People said we might as well fight back. It was in London that the membership started realizing that something's going to happen." The London Day of Action was a preview of the strike - the biggest show of militant support we had ever seen from OPSEU. There were picket lines in front of every Government of Ontario building in the city. It was a turning point for the two thousand OPSEU picketers who showed up that day. And it was a turning point for OPSEU. At our regular December meeting, the OPSEU Executive Board placed the union on strike alert.

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THE T H I R D P O L L , D E C E M B E R 1995

The third and final poll was done in December and released in early January. This time 800 members were polled. Although the level of support and non-support for the Harris government remained about the same as in the October poll, the other results were different. Rooney noticed that the willingness to strike increased when it was tied to specific issues. "When we asked the same abstract question [about going on strike] we got the same 5Z to 53 per cent. Only when you asked concrete questions about stuff on the table, the numbers started to balloon." This poll indicated that 64 per cent would strike to protect the notice period in a layoff, and that 63 per cent would support a strike to oppose the government's attempt to unilaterally change the classification system and unilaterally implement a new wage grid. The poll showed that 67 per cent would support a strike to restore successor rights, but the big surprise was pensions: 71 per cent would support a strike to defend their pensions. The pension implications of Bill 2.6 had had its effect on the membership. The union now knew how to sell a strike vote, and Rooney felt more confident about how to present the idea to the membership: "We based our literature on the poll results. 'The government is coming to take away your pensions, seniority, and your job security.' We had the fax system." OPS P R E S I D E N T S MEET IN EARLY JANUARY

On Saturday, 6 January, OPS local presidents from across Ontario met in Toronto. This was the next step in the build-up for strike preparation. At this meeting, word was spread to another layer, the local leadership; the bargaining teams reported on the state of bargaining, and the local presidents heard about the employer's rush to conciliation and about the mobilization package. During the meeting, somebody asked if we had enough money for a strike. Most of our strike fund was invested in the union's head office in North York. We had about $i million in liquid assets, but the building was basically worthless. The strike fund issue became public every so often. It was used by opponents of public-sector unions. Toronto's Eye Magazine had had a damning article in April 1993 that had caught the attention of many members. The issue was more important than simply the mismanagement of the fund. We all knew that if members were going to back the union, they had to believe that the union was capable of pulling off a strike - and that included issuing strike pay. Bill Kuehnbaum, OPSEU'S treasurer, reported that we had the promise of a

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$10 million interest-free loan from the United Steelworkers and that the 30 per cent dues levy on essential service workers would be worth about $2. million a week. This calmed the fears of the local leadership. Kuehnbaum assured the local presidents that we could financially sustain a strike. The tone of the meeting was confident and militant. Bob Marley's "Stand Up for Your Rights" blared from the speakers. We saw a video of the London Day of Action and another of Elaine Ellis breaking up a press conference given by London's Tory MPP, Diane Cunningham The message to the local presidents was clear: Be like the two thousand OPSEU picketers in London; be like Elaine; we're next on the Tory list; prepare your members for the strike; link up with your SACG. A cheer filled the room as the results of the third poll were read out, and at the end of the meeting we took up the chant, led by John O'Brien: "Strike, strike, strike, strike!" Some local presidents stood on their chairs, and their show of support was featured on the evening news and in the next day's newspapers. Bill Kuehnbaum was sitting at the front table as the chant spread throughout the room: "I could see local leaders looking bewildered and realizing that this was a turning point. The feeling was expanded beyond staff and teams connected with the negotiations. No local president could leave without a strike feeling." Carol Hughes, president of local 604 in Elliot Lake, certainly had this feeling: "I left there knowing that we had to get ready." So did Terry Downey: "The message from the union was 'Hey, we're going on strike and you gotta get your members ready.'" B U I L D A S T R I K E AND THEY W I L L COME

Throughout the province, OPSEU activists were already organizing for the strike vote. Early in December, members in eastern Ontario went to an OPSEU training session in Cornwall. One of these members was Judy Boutilier, a local president in Kingston and an employee of the Ministry of Transportation: "We learned from the EBMS how the employer wanted to gut article Z4 [the job-security language in the previous collective agreement]. We passed it around our local." Gavin Anderson, a Kingston-area OPSEU activist, also helped spread the word: "The Kingston area council immediately organized a job action committee after the Cornwall educational. We called a meeting at the Steelworkers Hall. It was packed. Everybody knew that there was going to be a strike. The hall holds three to four hundred, and as many people were turned away." "We all knew the strike was coming," said Wayne Ireson, a member

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of the Administrative Services bargaining team. Ireson is a health and safety inspector with the Ministry of Labour, and he helped organize local bargaining councils throughout the fall of 1995: "The meetings started small, but as we got into November and December the numbers increased. The main feeling was fear, based on lack of understanding. Initially there was hostility towards the union: 'Why is the union pushing for a strike? I don't want a strike. I've got six kids.' Gradually there was a change. At the beginning they thought of the employer as a parent. By January they had got angry at the employer: 'After years of service why are they forcing us to do this?' Their biggest concern was layoff." The leadership made a particular effort to rally support in the Toronto region of OPSEU, Region 5, which was very big and impersonal. We had never had much success establishing a union presence in the large downtown office buildings in the Queen's Park area. Early in November, the union assigned three organizers from head office to work exclusively on strike mobilization in Region 5: Gary Adams, Gavin Leeb, and Jim Paul. Based in the union's Queen's Park office, they worked with the Region 5 EBMS to mobilize the fifty-seven OPS locals in the Toronto region. A program of strike mobilization was put in place, complete with local meetings, Tuesday evening information sessions, a phone bank, workplace organizing, and lunchtime rallies. We also organized all-day strike-training sessions on two Saturdays in January. Linda Torney, president of the Metro Toronto Labour Council, and Jean-Claude Parrot, vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress and former president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, "cut the ribbon" at the official opening of the Queen's Park strike headquarters on 29 January. Parrot was a veteran of a number of postal strikes and had gone to jail in the early 19808 to defend his union's right to strike. That night, he told about two hundred OPSEU stewards that he had been hired by Canada Post in the early 19505 and that when he was being introduced to other postal workers, two of them had been missed. When he asked why those two were passed over, he was told that they had scabbed in a 19308 strike. Parrot also told us that while it might be nice to have public sympathy during a publicsector strike, we should never forget that the strike was between the union and the employer. We then conducted a workshop on picketing. Staff negotiator Brian Mayes pushed the idea of a phone bank for Region 5. The employer's negotiator Don Chiro had told him that the union would lose the strike vote because of the Office Administration Group and Administrative Services, the two largest occupational units: "We already knew that we were weak there from Rooney's polling,"

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said Mayes. "Both were heavily concentrated in Toronto." So we installed ten phones in the union's Queen's Park office, and OPSEU'S information services department printed off the names and phone numbers of every office worker in Toronto, about 12,000 people. We phoned relentlessly. Every weeknight and on weekends, activists came into the office to call. We produced a script based on the results of the third poll. People liked the phone bank idea. It was run by Marilyn Youden, a Queen's Park staff representative, and was staffed by members. There was also a phone bank at the head office. In January and February we spoke at local after local, day in and day out. The members listened. As we got closer to the strike vote, the rooms became more and more packed. At first members were sceptical. They couldn't imagine going on strike. But after hearing about the short-term layoff and the pension setbacks in Bill 2,6, the room would grow silent. Fear and anger would replace doubt. The union's message was strong and coherent, and civil servants slowly but surely turned to the union in the loyalty fight. We knew from the polls that we had the numbers. It was now up to the union leadership to give the members a vehicle to jump on. Leeb noticed the turning point late in January: "Members changed their questions from 'if we go on strike' to 'when we go on strike.'" The turn to the union was about loyalty and trust. Mike Oliver, an Executive Board member from Cornwall, expressed it well: "Some locals said they would never strike. After I spoke, they changed their minds." Smokey Anwyll, an Executive Board member from London, also noticed the loyalty: "In this region, we did the locals one by one. The locals supported us. I wasn't surprised. They voted for the strike because the board members asked for it." The turn to the union was also about organization, as Sandra Noad, who works for the Ministry of Health in London, explained: "We were well organized to sell the strike vote. The local stood behind it. We were very strong. We organized and got our teams and committees together. The information circulated. The units and the stewards got together. We had lunchtime meetings. Management never tried to stop us." Steve Nield, a health and safety inspector in Sarnia, backed this up: "I thought it would be a tough sell. But we had a number of meetings and good turnouts. Members were hungry for information." Tom Grimes, who works for the Ministry of Transportation in Windsor, agreed: "We had to keep the locals informed. The communication line was key." Another reason for the turn to the union was the arrogance of the employer and the arrogant contract offer to the union. Dominic Bragaglia, who works at the Windsor jail and was president of local 135,

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put it well: "They thought that we were so afraid to go on strike that they could offer us anything. The government was very arrogant. There were deeper issues. You bargain during bargaining, not through legislation. They were changing things too rapidly. People got angry and said No." Mike Oliver observed: "There was no compassion for public servants. They were drawn to the union like a magnet. People were ready for the strike. Once they understood the short-term layoff, they were ready to vote for a strike." Ron Elliot had expected a showdown as early as the summer: "In every speech, we started telling people in June to prepare for a strike. We told them to buy canned goods." Pat Shearer, who works for the Ministry of Education and Training in Thunder Bay, noted: "In our ministry, they were starting to wake up to the surplussing. People were starting to take interest in the language: bumping, seniority." Fred Upshaw, who worked at the Orillia SACG, remembers the early February membership meeting in Orillia to get the strike vote: "There was a packed meeting in Orillia; bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway. We had the largest turnout in the history of this union, over a thousand. It was just before the vote. People walked out of the meeting gung-ho. I knew then we had it. Every meeting I went to had record turnouts, and I relayed the message. People were coming in unsure but always walked out gung-ho. Nobody could have stopped that vote." There were, however, some regional issues associated with the strike vote. In North Bay I heard two concerns about the Toronto votes outnumbering those of northern Ontario. Mike Colborne, from the Ministry of Transportation, said, "People in the north thought we'd be dragged into it by the people in the south." And Diane Gallupe, from Corrections, explained: "My co-workers were afraid that the north would be swayed by the vote from Toronto. It surprised them that northern Ontario was as ticked off as Toronto. We don't have many jobs to go to. In the south there are more options." Ironically, members in Region 6, northwestern Ontario, voted 69.2. per cent for a strike, and those in Region 7 voted 81.1 per cent. Members in Toronto, in Region 5, voted 64.1 per cent. OPSEU CALLS THE STRIKE VOTE

OPSEU called for a "no-board" report and asked for the employer's "best offer" on 4 February. The employer came up with that offer on 6 February, and the strike vote was scheduled for 15, 16, and 17 February. The battle for the hearts and minds of the membership was on. OPSEU'S message was clear - to give the bargaining team a No vote so that they could get a better offer from the employer. Some members

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took this literally. Sally Rudka, president of the large Oshawa local, said, "I was surprised that my local voted to strike. They are accountants and clerical workers. They believed the strike wouldn't happen and that we would get a settlement." The membership had to make a choice: Who do you trust - the union or the government? Should you put your fate in the hands of an employer who was threatening big layoffs but swore that, given the hard economic times, its offer was "fair and reasonable"? Or should you put your fate in the hands of your union, OPSEU, who was offering you a chance to stand up to the employer at $ioo-a-week strike pay? The no-board report was written by the conciliation officer, Paul Gardner on 9 February. If the membership of the union rejected the government's offer and thus gave the union a strike mandate, the union could legally strike on 26 February. The rule book states that the union can go on strike sixteen days after a no-board report is written, but not without a strike vote; and there can still be negotiations for seven days between the results of a strike vote and the first day of a strike. THE FAX WAR

OPSEU members were deluged with information and advice while they were making up their minds. Ontario government offices have about 3,500 fax machines, and between mid-January and late February they went through a lot of toner, receiving and printing material from both OPSEU and the government. The contest between the union and the employer for the hearts and minds of the membership was now wide open. The government produced seven issues of Instant Topical between 6 and 14 February. All were about bargaining, and all tried to convince the membership that the government's deal was "fair and reasonable." When I asked Frank Rooney about the employer's communications strategy before the strike vote, he said: They relied on the fact that they have direct contact with employees and the union doesn't. They can send out faxes and information through management to influence the vote. They didn't anticipate that we would use their fax network. We used it more intelligently. We sent out stuff that was in direct response to theirs. On content they relied on traditional attitudes in the public service - people trust their boss; that this is the best offer that they'll ever get. They misjudged the members completely. They thought they could get away with it. What they didn't anticipate from us was how hard we would sell a strike vote. The tone was punchy and militant: ';Look at this train coming down the line. Do you have an alternative to a strike?"

OPSEU Builds for the Strike 99 The OPSEU fax of 15 and 2,5 January and i February appeared in government offices giving OPSEU'S version of developments in conciliation. The 4 February issue announced the breakdown of talks and the dates for the strike vote; and between 4 February and 14 February OPSEU produced four issues of OPSEU fax advocating a No vote on the employer's "best offer." For the ten days between the tabling of the employer's "best offer" (6 February) and the beginning of the strike vote (15 February), the government fax machines were, in effect, a collective-bargaining arena. Every morning, OPSEU members (and their managers) waited for the latest version of the debate. The details are as follows: • 6 February. Instant Topical shows up on the fax machines, giving the government's first shot on its "best offer." The government tells employees that it is offering a pay increase on i April. In fact, i April is the legislated close of the Social Contract, when Rae Days and the moratorium on merit increases are in any case scheduled to end. The government defends its "employment stability" offer. It also argues that there is "no reduction to employees' current pension entitlements, despite what you may have heard." It neglects to mention Bill z6. The offer, it argues, is "fair and reasonable." • 7 February. OPSEU fax appears on the 3,500 government fax machines with the headline "Reject This Offer - February 6th Isn't Good Enough." It goes on to criticize the job security and pensions offer. Neither comes close to restoring the rights that were removed by Bill 7 or Bill 2,6. The double severance package is considered a sensible improvement. • 8 February. The government responds with three issues of Instant Topical. Information sheet i is a defence of its pension offer without a word about the Bill 2.6 rollback. Information sheet 2, boasts about the "increase" in wages, which is really just a lifting of the Social Contract on i April. Information sheet 3 is about its offer on employment stability: the promise of efforts to transfer employees to a new employer, double severance, two bumps (with the proviso that the second bumper will need five years' service), redeployment, skills assessment, and some improvement to the recall language. • 11 February. A five-page OPSEU fax criticizes the employer's offer on pensions and employment stability and points out that the "wage increase" and "benefit improvement" are simply a lifting of the Social Contract. Page 3 has a reminder that the short-term layoff is still in the employer's proposal and that classification is still in the hands of management, because Bill 7 took away the employee's right

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to third-party arbitration on classification disputes. Page 4 has the simple message, "Vote 'No' to the government's offer." • 12 February. The government responds with information sheet 4, which defends its offer on employee benefits, and information sheet 5, which justifies its proposal for the new classification system. • 14 February. The government produces its last information sheet, with an explanation of its pension proposals. OPSEU has its final say in an OPSEU fax that has the headline "Back to the Table? - Johnson Admits NO Vote Will Restart Talks." Once again, OPSEU asks the members to vote No. This last OPSEU fax also included a satirical piece written by Ian Henderson from my local at the Mowat Block in Queen's Park - a mock letter from Mike Harris to all OPS employees, under the letterhead "MBS Clearinghouse": Believe it or not, you are only a simple "YES" away from realizing a PREMIER DREAM. JUST THINK OF IT, Ontario Public Servant, all you have to do is say "YES" to this exclusive FINAL OFFER - and ; MAY SOON BE WRITING AGAIN TO TELL YOU THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED AS ONE OF ONLY 13, 2.7, 2O THOUSAND!!!. Still sceptical? Well, then, Ontario Public Servant, what if I added that, if YOU return a "YES" vote to this EXCITING FINAL OFFER TODAY, in just two weeks YOU COULD BE OFF ON A THREE-MONTH VACATION! IMAGINE THREE MONTHS AWAY FROM YOUR PAY CHEQUE.

In this same period, OPSEU produced twelve fliers on bargaining issues. The results of the third poll influenced the content of these fliers, and their headlines were very blunt: "Going Private? - Wages, Benefits, Pensions Dumped When Services Sold Off"; "Government Flunks Job Class: Government Demands Dictatorship on Job Classification"; "Government Picks Pension Pocket: Targets OPSEU Retirement Options"; "Short Notice! Two Weeks' Notice for Short-Term Layoffs"; "Seniority under Fire: Government Smacks Long-Term Employees"; "Will Your Job Be Toast?" For twelve straight workdays, OPSEU members received such messages over the fax machine in their workplace. OPSEU also spent about $L million on radio and television advertisements that were broadcast right across the province. As well, on 7 February every OPS member received a sixteen-page issue of Table Talk, the publication of the union's collective-bargaining department, which carried a strong, detailed analysis criticizing the employer's offer.

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THE EMPLOYER ALSO PREPARES FOR THE STRIKE

The government meanwhile had developed an intricate bureaucracy to deal with the logistics of a possible strike. Each ministry established a strike response team, which reported to the Corporate Strike Response Team. Malcolm Smeaton, who was put in charge of this team, explained: "A couple of weeks before the strike I was at a meeting with senior civil servants. I was asked by Rita Burak [secretary to cabinet] if the strike would happen. I told her yes, we were certain. I was then asked to be the day-to-day manager of the strike response centre. I reported to Michele Nobel, deputy minister of Management Board. I was expected to stay for twenty-four hours daily." Smeaton's team produced the Strike Response Communications Guide, whose eight sections covered the mechanics of running a strike from the employer's perspective. In true civil service fashion, it first dealt with the reporting hierarchy and communications protocol. OPSEU was organizing a rebellion, while the government was working on an organizational chart. The premier's office was in the top box of the chart. This box had a reporting relationship with the caucus box. Under the premier's office was a fairly comprehensive reporting hierarchy, involving senior management in all ministries. The civil service was thus drawn into the service of the Common Sense Revolution. Section 3 of the manual gives fairly concise instructions on identifying and quelling disturbances. There are three tiers: tier i is a minor inconvenience involving few employees in one work location; tier z is a moderate disturbance involving a significant number of employees in more than one location; tier 3 is a full-blown revolution. The Corporate Decision Centre was to get involved with the tier 3 situations. Section 4 is a triumph of bureaucratic wishful thinking. It actually sets a daily agenda of activities for strike response teams. (We were freezing on the picket line and they were keeping up with an agenda.) The rest of the guide deals with internal communications, media relations, and, of course, evaluation. Leaving nothing to chance, it even has ten forms in an appendix, including an end-of-day communication field status report and a media-contact report. The government did manage to interfere with our ability to communicate. At work, our voice-mail system can normally store twenty-five three-minute messages. This was changed two weeks before the strike; the capacity of voice mail for OPSEU members was reduced to six thirty-second messages. I had to check my messages every hour; a union vice-president gets a lot of voice mail just before a strike vote.

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Before the strike vote, SACGS had less than two weeks to organize accessible voting for 67,000 civil servants in every municipality and town in Ontario, and of course the process had to be controlled so that people could not vote twice. Lynda Roach-Ferguson, who organized the vote in the Toronto area, recalls: "We had to accommodate 22,000 people in 57 locals in over 200 work locations. It was a nightmare. At first we discussed the possibility of voting at work sites, but we felt that it wasn't appropriate to vote on the employer's workplace. The employer publicly said that they would make them available. That was a tactic to upset the employees and to make it look as if we were making it difficult." As James Rusk noted, "The strike vote was perhaps the most complicated in Ontario history. The 67,400 civil servants represented by OPSEU work at an estimated 4,000 locations across the province, and so the union held 238 meetings from February 15 to 17 at about 100 places."5 Every local was assigned a time and place to vote. We received a number of complaints by members in the week before the strike. We acquiesced to the complaints and permitted members to vote where and when they wanted, which further complicated the process. Another complication was a challenge at the Ontario Labour Relations Board by David Smith of local 532 in Toronto, who argued that OPSEU was making the strike vote inaccessible. But the Labour Board threw out the challenge as unfounded and frivolous. The employer complicated the process even more. On Thursday, 15 February, the first evening of the vote, we set up voting at the Convention Centre in downtown Toronto. We were prepared to receive about two thousand members, but the employer allowed people to leave early that day, causing a major problem for Roach-Ferguson: "Nearly four thousand showed up that night, all at once. We were prepared for a large turnout but sporadically." Members were lined up for blocks waiting to vote. We tried to get them to attend a meeting in a room that held about two thousand, where John O'Brien and Andre Bekerman were standing by to explain the employer's offer. The union leadership was adamant about members attending a meeting before the vote, but we had to drop this aim and let members vote without attending a meeting. It took about two hours to get everybody to vote. We were afraid we might lose the vote because of the pandemonium. The votes were counted on Sunday, 18 February, and we had the results by 6:00 PM. There had been 47,570 valid votes cast; 31,664 members had voted to reject the employer's offer, and 15,906 had voted to accept it. In other words, 70.6 per cent of all eligible members

OPSEU Builds for the Strike 103 Table 2 The Strike Vote, 15-17 February 1996: Results from the Vote on the Employer's "Best Offer" No1

Yes

5,081 3,747 6,129 9,698 2,134 3,772

4,532 987 2,463 5,906 867 2,064

52.9 79.2 71.3 62.2 71.1 64.6

3,951 4,619 4,820 4,649 7,823 3,444 2,358

1,574 2,749 2,797 2,313 4,389 1,533 551

71.5 62.7 63.3 66.8 64.1 69.2 81.1

Total on central offer

31,664

15,906

66.6

Total votes Eligible to vote Percentage turnout

47,570 67,400 70.6

Strike vote (%)

BY BARGAINING UNIT (PROVINCEWIDE) 2

Administrative Correctional Institutional and Health Care Office Administration Operational and Maintenance Technical

BY REGION (ON THE CENTRAL COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT) 2

Region 1 (southwest Ontario) Region 2 (west-central Ontario) Region 3 (east-central Ontario) Region 4 (eastern Ontario) Region 5 (Toronto) Region 6 (northeast Ontario) Region 7 (northwest Ontario)

1 A No vote meant rejecting the government's "best offer" and voting for a strike mandate for the union's bargaining team. 2 There were two votes. One was on the employer's offer at the central table. The second vote was on the employer's offer for one's occupational unit (one of six units). OPSEU recommended a No vote on all seven offers. It is possible to get a strike vote at one or two occupational tables and get settlements at the rest, including the central table. The figures in the bargaining unit list represent the provincewide vote results for that particular occupational bargaining unit. The figures in the region list represent the vote results for the central collective agreement.

had voted, and 66.6 per cent had rejected the employer's offer (see table 2). The union had won the loyalty battle with the employer by a two-to-one margin. All six unit offers had been turned down. But Don Chiro was right about the office workers. A smaller pencentage of them had voted for a strike. Administrative Services had just squeaked by with 52.9 per cent, and the Office Administration Group had a strike vote of 62.z per cent. Corrections had the highest vote of all, with 79.2 per cent. At the press conference on Sunday night, Leah Casselman and John O'Brien challenged the government to come back to the table with a

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STRIKE EMERGES

better offer, an offer that OPSEU could recommend to the membership. The following day, the 3,500 fax machines in government offices carried an OPSEU fax whose front page bore the huge one-word headline "No!" But there was not a word from the government. WHY A "NO"

VOTE?

Why do workers vote to give their union a strike mandate? Bill Kuehnbaum argues that they vote to strike for bread-and-butter issues: "Workers don't strike for ideological reasons. They look at the offer. They listen to both sides. 'Here's the collective agreement that I have now and here's the collective agreement that I'll have if I vote yes to this.' If they think that it's too far backwards, then they vote No." According to Kuehnbaum's theory, civil servants voted No in February 1996 because they could not accept what the employer was offering. Mike Colbourne from North Bay agrees with Kuehnbaum: "I was fighting for my pension and my severance pay. I knew in the next five years this government was getting rid of me. Forget solidarity. Mike Harris touched us in the pocketbook. It was personal. People were there for themselves." Yet Kelly Loxton of North Bay was not. She has very low seniority, and it was the plight of others that concerned her: "I didn't strike for myself. It protected those with seniority and those near pension. And that's fair. Older people can't get work." Joan Gates of Whitby Psychiatric Hospital thought it was a mixture of ideology and self-interest: "People felt an outrage at the Harris government. The pension change was horrendous and the horrible changes to our jobsecurity language. But there were also the social justice elements. People also opposed the changes in the programs for our patients: welfare, drug plans. People felt strongly about the changes to the social fabric. We felt that we had to take a stand." Whether for ideology or self-interest, the Harris government had given civil servants plenty of reasons to vote No. Its "best offer" was a rollback of our collective agreement. Dave Johnson admitted that. He wrapped it in necessity, saying that they didn't have a choice, that the Government of Ontario was broke. But the Common Sense Revolution had given us many reasons to take a stand against the government on ideological as well as practical grounds.

PART T H R E E

OPSEU on Strike

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CHAPTER 7

OPSEU Goes on Strike

We fought for this for many years and at last our efforts were fruitful. It put us on a different level and a different footing. Now we're able to do something about our own plight in the OPS. Tony Carneiro, local 599, Toronto

"The job of a journalist is to report significant events," stated John McGrath, who covered the strike for the CBC in Toronto. "The February 4th call for a strike vote was not significant. People interpreted that as posturing, as a bargaining ploy. At that point the Harris government had won just about every move they had taken. The mood in the media was that OPSEU was setting itself up for a big defeat. Everybody was surprised by the strike vote. Journalists started paying attention after the vote. It came into the radar. The strike vote forced people to change their perceptions. For people who covered labour, it was significant." But although it was significant, the strike could still have been averted. The OPSEU fax that appeared on the 3,500 government fax machines on Monday, 19 February, announcing the 66.6 per cent No vote, carried the following message from Leah Casselman: "Public service workers are not going on strike - yet. And we are not going to set a strike deadline - yet. We are going to return to the bargaining table, tomorrow morning."1 However, Casselman instructed locals to get ready for a strike. The union could be out by Monday, 26 February, just a week later. When OPS employees went into work that Monday, they did not hear directly from their employer. They had to read the newspapers, watch television, or listen to the radio to hear what the government had to say. Dave Johnson was disappointed with the results of the vote: "I thought that our offer was fair and reasonable. We're pre-

IO8

OPSEU ON STRIKE

pared to go back to the table. Our negotiators have already talked to the mediator. We welcome the union back to the table."2 However, the employer did communicate with the managers. Since April 1995, Management Board had been sending out At the Table., a newsletter on bargaining written exclusively for its management staff. Issues two through six, which had appeared between 10 January and 9 February, were explanations of the government's bargaining position. The seventh issue came out on 19 February, right after the strike vote. In it, the employer stated that it was "willing to continue negotiating, but that fiscal constraints severely limit what we can offer. We believe that the offer public servants have rejected is fair and reasonable by any yardstick." 3 But the carrot had not worked. Before the strike vote, the government had done everything possible to make its contract offer seem "fair and reasonable," even sweetening the bait with the double severance pay. But it wasn't enough. The take-aways were too much. The employer had maintained its short-term layoff demand and had not addressed the issue of successor rights or pension bridging. The government's timing and strategy was either short-sighted or arrogant, or both. The timing of Bill 2,6 had fed right into OPSEU'S strike preparations. I remember telling government negotiator Don Chiro after the strike that they had made the job of selling a strike vote pretty easy for us; they had pushed the membership of the union too far. Since the Tories' carrot had not worked, they moved on to plan B: Bring out the stick; prepare for a strike by dividing the workforce against itself; break the picket lines with a strikebreaking strategy. We had seen a sign of this strategy the week before the strike vote; on 13 February Management Board had sent an e-mail to all OPSEU employees. It appeared to be a reasonably harmless document on voting and essential services until one saw the headline on the third page, "Reporting to Work during a Strike" - a not so subtle reminder that we had the legal right to go to work during a strike. It was a gentle nudge and a wink from the boss. The government was applying the scab provisions of Bill 7 to its own labour dispute. Three days before the strike, it was more explicit about strikebreaking: "Johnson urged union members to come to work in defiance of a strike, if one is called, saying they might be used to perform their own work or another's if they cross the picket line. 'They should feel entitled to come to work and they will certainly be paid.'" He was also hinting at using replacement workers.4 For the Tories, winning the strike was more important than the quality of labour relations in their workforce. Bitterness towards

OPSEU Goes on Strike

109

strikebreakers lingers long after a strike. Jean-Claude Parrot had pointed that out to us in late January. Crossing your own picket line is a form of betrayal to the people with whom you work. Managers and members of other bargaining units must legally go to work during a strike, nobody questions that, but strikebreakers are another story. They weaken the union and strengthen the employer. Yet strikebreakers benefit from the strike as bargaining-unit dues payers, and they are covered by the collective agreement that results from the strike.51 always find it bizarre that they are willing to act against their own interests. On 2.5 February, one day before the strike deadline, word was leake to the media that "Ontario could be in for a long and nasty strike - up to three or four months." The Toronto Star reported: "The provincial government is prepared to bring in 5,000 replacement workers to do the work of striking provincial employees and is also counting on many members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union to cross the picket lines and return to work."6 The Tories' strategy was clear. First, they attempted to cause their employees to think they would be on the picket line for a long time drawing $100 a week in strike pay, and then they pointed out that the strike was futile, that the work would be done anyway, so employees might as well go into work. Johnson denied the story on the day of the strike, but the point had been made. By encouraging strikebreaking, the government was exploiting the fears of workers, fears it had helped create. There is always a certain uneasiness between the union and some of the membership. Fearful members avoid association with the union, believing that it could hurt their advancement. Strikebreaking capitalizes on the team approach that has been preached by the OPS for years, an approach that advo cates identification with the employer. It polarizes the workplace in profound ways. Some of the most emotional moments I experienced was when strikers were dealing with strikebreakers. In my interviews with strikers, the issue always came up. There is also the fear of unemployment. One of the most frequent questions we heard during strike mobilization concerned possible job loss. The majority of OPSEU members saw through the fear tactics; only about 5,000 of the approximately 55,000 eligible strikers crossed the picket line. Ironically, many managers and human resources officials have little or no respect for workers who cross their own picket lines. The Rae government understood this problem when it enacted the anti-scab provisions of the Labour Relations Act. Those provisions took away an employer's ability to manipulate and bully workers before and during a strike, and they respected the principle of restor-

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OPSEU ON STRIKE

ing labour relations after a strike. The Harris government also understood the problem. That is why it removed the anti-scab provisions of the Labour Relations Act with Bill 7, restoring the advantage to employers. We had witnessed its devastating effects in the lockout at Great Lakes College in January 1996, and we saw its meaning in the OPS strike. Jean-Claude Parrot was right. The bitter ness lingers. While the government was trying to frighten its employees with predictions of a long strike, OPSEU was predicting exactly the opposite. On 2.5 February OPSEU president Leah Casselman stated: "In order to have it effective, it's going to be short and in order to be short we're going to have as many people out and cause as much pain for the employer as possible."7 OPSEU urged its members not to strikebreak. Under the law there was little else the union could do. It had to rely on moral and self-interest arguments. To this end, it produced a flier that bore the headline "Scabs Can't Hide" and explained why union members should not strikebreak: "Scabs are the people who go to work when their bargaining unit is on strike. They don't know that their actions actually prolong the strike ... They don't seem to realize how that will affect their future working relationship ... Scabs are afraid to stand up for their rights or the rights of their co-workers ... They think they'll get ahead by working during a strike or lockout. But good managers value credibility over servitude ... Scabs don't look at themselves in the mirror." GETTING READY FOR THE STRIKE

Meanwhile, the membership was preparing for the strike. Picket captains set up their strike rosters; bank accounts were opened; systems were established to receive funds from head office in order to distribute strike pay; members were assigned their specific strike duties and picket lines; and strike headquarters were set up. Since OPSEU had never before been on strike, people faced numerous problems. "It was our first time out," said Don Jordan, a health and safety inspector in London, who was to picket in his home town of Woodstock. "There was a lot of trial and error. What do we do about shelters? There were harsh weather conditions. What about washrooms, phone trees? We're not an experienced union doing these things." Gavin Leeb recalls the difficulty posed by the fifty-seven locals in Toronto: "There were too many locals in Toronto for the SACG concept to work. We clustered neighbouring locals instead." The Queen's Park cluster had eleven locals with two strike headquarters. One was donat-

OPSEU Goes on Strike III

ed by the Ontario Nurses' Association. A second cluster consisted of eight other downtown locals. Gary Hoag of local 528, who works for the Office of the Worker Adviser in Toronto, said: "I sort of became the grandfather of the cluster. After the strike vote, we had to find a place for the cluster. We had to get insurance, phones, fax, and furniture. We wanted to be sure that we were ready if it happened. We had a meeting with the police. We talked about protocols. As long as we didn't break the law, there'd be no trouble with them. They gave us latitude." Sue Brown, who works at the North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, local 636, recalls: "The local established the three committees: finance, publicity, and picket duty. We chose members who were strong on the various issues. We had fifteen picket captains. We had a twenty-four-hour picket line." Also at North Bay was Kelly Loxton of local 635, who works at the social service office. Although she was five and a half months pregnant when the strike started and had three children at home, she volunteered to be a picket captain. To train for the strike she met with the other picket captains once a week: "We learned how to run a roster, protocols, and picket assignments." Far to the south, in St Catharines, were Judith Marion and Dan McKnight of local 2,70, working for the Ministry of Transportation. Their office had relocated from Toronto in October, and about half the local was still commuting from Toronto. McKnight remembers the difficulty of pulling together a strike under those conditions: "We had only just organized the local. We had no local connections. We had a whole block here for 180 members, and zo to 30 per cent of the members were picketing in Toronto." (OPSEU allowed strikers to do their strike duty at work sites close to their home.) Marion recalls that the week before the strike she "had to put together a phone list so that our communications would work." The regional offices were open every night to allow members to make picket signs. Newsletter committees were established. Passes were printed for essential service workers. Cell phones were rented for picket lines. Scrounge committees went looking for anything that might be useful in the strike. Mike Colbourne, who was in charge of the scrounge committee in North Bay, was asked by Will Presley, the vice-president of Region 6, to get the wood, barrels, and portable toilets: "Eventually requests poured in for anything: diapers, formula, a food bank, clothing, all kinds of things." BENEFITS

OPSEU had to deal with the issue of benefits centrally. We wanted to maintain as much of the regular benefits package as possible for strik-

112

OPSEU ON STRIKE

ing members. At its January meeting, the Executive Board agreed to cover all benefits except glasses and dental work. We agreed to give the premiums to an independent trustee, who would turn them over to the insurance company. Elizabeth Huitema was on the OPSEU central bargaining team that negotiated the benefit coverage: "The benefits negotiations happened on February 2.3rd. The government stonewalled on whether we could pay the premium in the event of a strike. We also negotiated who we were paying for: not essential service workers and not strikebreakers. We won that. It was signed on Friday morning at 9 AM." Agatha McPhee, who manages the OPSEU accounts department, recalls that the collective-bargaining department "negotiated a very favourable rate with the government of four dollars per day per striker, and in return the employer would continue remitting premium payments to the carrier." Adds Heather Gavin, "We set up a trust fund rather than pay up-front. There was an administrator, a jointly appointed trustee. Her job was to receive and hold these payments. There would be an accounting afterwards. We had to put in around $5 million up-front. That wiped out our strike fund." NEGOTIATIONS

A F T E R T H E S T R I K E VOTE

Negotiations resumed on Tuesday, 20 February. This was the first time we had gone back to the table since OPSEU broke off talks on 4 February. OPSEU tabled a new proposal on how the government should manage the downsizing. It was a five-point plan that included a voluntary exit option, an improved severance package, an attrition program that would meet the government's downsizing requirements, more comprehensive bumping, and redeployment and a retraining program. The union and management teams did not meet face to face. The talks took place through a mediator. On Thursday, OPSEU set a strike deadline, announcing that if there was no settlement, OPSEU would go on strike on Monday, 2.6 February, at 12:01 AM. The government never really responded to OPSEU'S proposal. "There was no real bargaining after the strike vote," said Bekerman. "There were some very brief meetings." Until the very last minute, the government was pleading poverty. The union "has to understand the financial reality,"said Dave Johnson.8 On 2,2. February the last OPSEU fax to go out before the strike wa sent to the membership. It outlined OPSEU'S latest bargaining proposal and announced the strike deadline. The following day the government sent another issue of At the Table to its managers, notifying them that the strike date was set; it included a "Managers' Guide to Pickets" and

OPSEU Goes on Strike

113

informed the managers that employees coming to work during the strike would receive benefits. Like OPSEU, the government was getting ready for the strike. The members of the Corporate Strike Response Team had established their headquarters on the third floor of the Macdonald Block. They called it the Bunker. T H E H A M I L T O N DAYS O F A C T I O N

The timing of the second OFL-sponsored day-of-action protest worked perfectly for OPSEU, since it was scheduled for 2,3 and 2.4 February, just before the strike deadline on Monday, ^6 February. Thousands of OPSEU members went to Hamilton for the event. Wayne Marston, president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, and Andrea Horwath of the Hamilton-Wentworth Coalition for Social Justice were the two co-chairs.9 Many of us welcomed this coalition between labour and the social movements. We saw it as a step forward in the fight not just against the Harris government but against the political and economic forces behind the Common Sense Revolution. As described in chapter 4, the Harris Tories were having a policy conference at the Hamilton Convention Centre that weekend, and the days of action had been planned months ago to coincide with the conference. Friday was the economic protest, when the transit system, garbage collection, and public schools were closed. Government offices had skeleton staffs, the Canada Post sorting station was closed. Picket lines were set up at Cameo and three Westinghouse plants. About 25,000 protesters participated in the rally in the afternoon.10 On Saturday, when over 100,000 opponents of the Harris agenda marched past the Tory convention, everyone was talking about the OPSEU strike deadline on Sunday midnight. This gave OPSEU members a great boost. To have so many demonstrators in Hamilton was reassuring to an OPSEU member who might have felt isolated from other Ontarians. Clearly, the protest movement was a lot deeper than a group of civil servants trying to protect their jobs and contract language. Correspondingly, the looming strike set the tone for the Hamilton protest. As Jack Lakey of the Toronto Star observed, "With about 55,000 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union eligible to go on strike midnight tonight, there was a defiant edge to the crowd."11 ON STRIKE

After seven weeks of preparation, we knew that we were ready. On the stroke of midnight on Monday, 2.6 February 1998, collective bar-

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OPSEU ON STRIKE

gaining was on the street. It was in the hands of the membership of the union. Premier Mike Harris was not happy about the strike. He blamed Bob Rae for giving us the right to strike in 1994. On tnat first Monday he described the right to strike as forbidden candy that had long been denied to us, "who were eager to taste it once it was available." 12 In an interview on CTV he said, "They were given thi candy. I'm not sure there was anything we could have done about it." I arrived on the picket line at the Toronto Jail at 11:30 PM on Sunday night with my partner Ester, my daughter Rachel, and Phil Berger, who "wouldn't miss this for the world." We all waited for midnight, when the strike would start. Linda Torney, president of the Toronto Labour Council, was also there. "I couldn't miss this historic occasion," she later said. "There was a countdown. People wanted to know if they could go out yet. They wanted to be taken off the leash. The spirit was amazing. It buoyed a lot of us up." During the next six to eight hours, picket lines popped up right across Ontario in front of jails, water treatment plants, office buildings, land registry offices, psychiatric hospitals, transport yards, probation offices, science centres, OPP offices, morgues, and welfare offices. It was huge. There were 2,000 picket lines and 2,67 locals scattered throughout the length and breadth of Ontario. Yet OPSEU was tentative about going on strike. The walkout was staggered. Not every local was slated to go out on the twenty-sixth. Some went out on the Tuesday, and all were scheduled to be out by Wednesday. OPSEU presented the staged walkout as a tactic. As Casselman explained at the time, OPSEU wanted to act strategically in selecting the first strike targets: "What we want to do is get the government's attention without having to affect the public right off."13 The strategy was more a reflection of OPSEU'S lingering doubt that a strike in the OPS could really happen. Ron Elliot, vice-president of the southwestern Ontario OPSEU region, was not impressed with this approach: "Region i [southwestern Ontario] and Region 7 [northwestern Ontario] were out on the first day. The idea of a staggered strike was an insane strategy." Len Hupet, Executive Board member from Fort Frances agreed with Elliot: "The staggered strike was demoralizing for the members. If we're going to do this, then everybody should go out at once. The optics were bad." About 25,000 members went out on the first day. Local 270 in St Catharines was one of those scheduled to go out on Monday morning, and this complicated things for the local president Dan McKnight because of some members' recent relocation from the Ministry of Transportation's head office in Toronto. "I got a call the Friday night

OPSEU Goes on Strike 115 before the strike from the Downsview office," recalled McKnight. Downsview (local 54z) was not due to out until Tuesday. "Some came to St Catharines from Toronto to be out the first day, to be with their co-workers on the picket line." OPSEU now relied on the strength, good will, and skills of its wider membership, and the membership was responding with enthusiasm. Said Sue Brown in North Bay: "The mood was gung-ho right from the beginning. A hundred people came at 6 AM the first day." Said Dan McKnight: "When I arrived at 5:30 in the morning on the first day, the picket line was already up." Said James Gushing at the Ministry of Transportation complex in North York: "On the first day we signed up 510 strikers." Said Gary Shaul at Queen's Park: "Our local had 300 people on the picket line the first day. The Toronto Hydro workers were also on strike. Late in the morning a few hundred Hydro workers marched up to Queen's Park and we had a joint rally. It was quite a sight to see OPSEU and CUPE on strike together." As Rod Pilgrim in Cornwall said, there was strong support from other unions on that first day: "We had thirty-one picket lines at thirteen ministries and four crown corporations." Ruth Bergman reports that her local in Kenora dealt with scabs on the very first day: "We intimidated them on the picket line. One crossed the first day and then stayed home for the rest of the strike. He couldn't stand the intimidation." Some of the essential service workers felt uneasy about going to work while their co-workers were on the picket line, but Evelyn Anger in Windsor reassured them: "I went to the door with them and shook their hands." Others with vivid memories of that first day include Sally Rudka, Jhalman Gosal, Gary Lawrence, and Terry Downey. Sally Rudka works at the Ministry of Finance head office in Oshawa: "We wanted to cause as much upheaval as possible. The source of the Ministry of Finance is money, so we blocked the trucks at the garage." Jhalman Gosal was picketing at the Metro West Detention Centre in Toronto: "Essential service workers and managers had to wait twenty minutes. We negotiated a protocol on the first day with the police and with management. There was to be a twenty-minute delay except for emergencies." Gary Lawrence, with the Ministry of Health in North York, was less successful in negotiating a picket protocol: "On the first day we had the cars backed up going into the parking lots ... We convinced the local management to let us have pickets on every floor. But Johnson's office nixed it." As for Terry Downey of the Human Rights Commission, her group tried to block off a parking area at the Atrium in downtown Toronto: "One member got struck by a car."

II6 OPSEU ON STRIKE

It was clear to all that the weeks ahead might be tough. It was equally clear that for the first time in history, OPSEU was on strike. The Ontario Public Service was on strike.

CHAPTER 8

The Politics of Picketing

The steps leading up to the front door were our turf. As things got more militant, as we imposed delays on people, it became even clearer that this was our turf. Managers and deputy ministers were on our turf, and they had to wait. That made people feel good. Gary Shaul, Queen's Park cluster coordinator

The strike had three locations: the bargaining table, the media, and the picket lines. Each was significant. The continued appearance of the strike on television and radio and in the newspapers reinforced the morale of the 30,000 picketers. The picket lines were the strike. Without the picket lines, there would be nothing to report in the media; and without the picket lines, the union negotiating team would have no clout at the table. The picket lines drove the strike. Consequently, the government did everything possible to diminish their size and effectiveness, and OPSEU did everything possible to strengthen them. When you go on the picket line, you enter the strike. You find out what's going on, and you ask questions: "What's the news? ... How is the work inside being affected? ... Who is going in? ... Why are they going in? ... What's happening in the negotiations?" As OPSEU vice-president Bill Kuehnbaum argued, workers vote down an employer's offer for bread-and-butter reasons: "Is the employer offering too little? ... Can we do better? ... Is the employer taking away too much?" The strike vote is about pay cheques, benefits, severance, working conditions and job security. But sometimes members vote down the offer in order to give the union's bargaining team another shot at the table: "If we give them a strike vote, then maybe, just maybe, they can bring back a better contract." Many of the OPSEU activists whom I interviewed believed that some members had voted to

II8 OPSEU ON STRIKE

turn down the employer's offer without really expecting to go on strike. They looked at the employer's "best offer" in mid-February; they considered the short-term layoff, the severance, and pension language; they listened to what OPSEU had to say; they listened to what the government had to say; and two-thirds of them voted No. Being on strike is different. When you go on strike, you enter a different dimension. You stand on a picket line in freezing weather for more than contract language. A hundred dollars a week does not go very far. The sacrifice becomes a statement about you and your beliefs. Harriet Conroy from Sudbury noticed the pride: "Not everybody on the picket line voted for the strike. They gave up the comfort of the paycheque and security for five weeks and said, 'I'm not going to take this.' People were very proud of this." You stay on strike for ideological reasons - for justice and fairness. You're on strike to oppose Mike Harris and everything he stands for. You're on strike to defend the rights of working people to a fair wage and for self-respect. You're on strike with everyone who has ever been on strike. Your self-interest as a worker converges with the ideology of unionism when you go on strike. Mitch Miller, who was an information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources in the warmer months and a snowplow operator in the winter, noticed the difference once the strike started: "The response that we saw on the picket line was greater than what we saw in the strike vote." On the picket line, civil servants are connected to a rich tradition of workers and unions standing up for their rights. Every night you see yourself on television standing on a picket line - in London, Thunder Bay, Kingston, or Toronto. Every morning you read interviews with yourself in the newspaper about why you are on strike and what you expect. You're an office worker, a corrections officer, a social worker, a psychiatric nurse, a health and safety inspector, an income maintenance officer ... You see yourself explaining to the world why Mike Harris is wrong and why OPSEU is right. For the first time in a very long time, the world makes sense. Rob Fairley, the former president of CUPE i (Toronto Hydro workers) put it well: "Strikers discover a sense of values they didn't know that they had. There is a breakthrough in consciousness. Standing on a picket line takes them outside the dominant ideology. They feel a part of history. There is a sense of purpose, of belonging. They know which side they are on. They're fighting Harris. That's easy to understand for the striker, the family, and the community. It makes 'being right' a lot easier." Now civil servants had joined - and were joined by - the entire opposition to the Harris government. The OPSEU picket lines became the anti-Harris setting; they were the place to scream and chant

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anti-Harris messages. For five very cold weeks in February and March 1996, they were the place to oppose the Common Sense Revolution. The strategy of the government and its allies was to belittle the significance of the strike. Their message to the picketers may be paraphrased as follows: "The strike doesn't really matter. It doesn't really affect anybody. The machinery of government is running at a reasonably normal level. The picket lines are ineffective. More of your coworkers are coming in to work. You are really being foolish by standing out in the cold for a hundred dollars a week when you could be inside drawing a full salary. Idealism is for university kids and fools who don't know any better, though even university students are waking up to the new realities of the competitive world in this neoconservative age. So stand up for yourself. There are no ideals. You're a fool if you think you can change the world, if you think you can stop this neoconservative juggernaut. Jump on board." Although the government and OPSEU were both attempting to win the battle for public opinion, the battle was really for the hearts and minds of the striking employees. Public opinion was just one of many determinants of the resolve of the picketers. Of course, the strikers wanted the backing of the public. (OPSEU had spent more than $i million on an advertising campaign just before the strike.) However, the strength of the picket lines was the strength of the strike. The currency of the union's bargaining strength was the support of the membership, and that support was gauged by the strength of the picket lines. Each striker knew that every strikebreaker weakened the strike. Every strikebreaker was a point for Harris and the government, just as every semblance of normal business, every truck that got through unobstructed, every jail or institution that was running normally, every permit that was issued, and every extra lane that was snowplowed was a point for Harris. Each picketer preferred that a nonworker came to the picket line rather than staying at home, but even staying home was far preferable to going to work. Some 2,0,000 stayed home. The union's ability to control entry and exit at work sites was a main battleground. OPSEU used any means to picket and control every entrance to every workplace in order to disrupt the regular business of the government. Meanwhile, the government's strategy was to pretend that everything was normal. This meant minimizing the number and effectiveness of our picket lines. The government tried to extend the essential services agreements to as many places as possible, especially in the jails, the highways, and abattoirs. It applied for more than eighty injunctions to contain or ban picket lines, and it filed more than thirty "illegal strike" applications against OPSEU at the Labour Board. Meanwhile, it encouraged and publicized strikebreaking in order to demor-

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alize the picket lines. At first, it refused to negotiate picket line protocols, because that would have been a recognition of the legitimacy of the picket lines. It tried to keep open the Queen's Park tunnel so that managers and strikebreakers could bypass the picket lines on their way to work, and it called the police every time the union pushed the envelope just a little bit farther. And while the government bargained in public, it distorted negotiating issues, trying to make the union leadership look unreasonable. The entire strategy was aimed at wearing down the determination of picketers. Ifi Zafiriadis, a picket captain at Queen's Park, said: "They pulled tricks on us. There were three doors to our building. The property management shut down two. When they thought we had a break in the line, they would open the other two doors to let people in. They would let a few people in who were waiting through the fifteen-minute delay. They had cameras ready. They thought that we would get violent. We held everybody back. We covered the other doors. Most managers would respect the picket line and wait their fifteen minutes." OPSEU bolstered picket lines to slow down or "bring down" any government operation. We used lawyers to defend picket lines, protocols, delays ... whatever. The purpose of the picket line was to limit and impede access. Certainly, nobody could get into work without being acutely aware that there was a strike in progress. Meanwhile, OPSEU fought the government's injunction applications in the courts, it fought their "illegal strike" applications at the Labour Board, and it initiated the negotiation of picket line protocols. But, most of all, the battle of wills between OPSEU and the government was fought on the picket line. At privately owned office buildings that housed government offices as tenants, OPSEU strikers staged "building invasions" to picket directly in front of the elevators or office doors. OPSEU picketers, along with steelworkers and teachers, occupied the Queen's Park tunnel to blockade that entrance to the Queen's Park complex. By 18 March, when OPSEU strikers disrupted the opening of the spring session of the legislature, Mike Harris and Dave Johnson could no longer pretend that it was "business as usual" in the Ontario government. When you have a full-time job, your work is an important part of your life. At work you associate with other people and take on an identity. A skill is exercised, and a service or product is assembled. Do you work in an institution or office? Do you perform a white-collar or blue-collar job? Where do you fit in the workplace hierarchy? On the picket line these relationships are transformed. You become a different person, because during a strike the hierarchy is turned upside down. Picketing strikers are in charge, controlling access to buildings. The picket line is a small piece of land that is charged with an enor-

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mous amount of political voltage. The politics on the picket line tend to reflect the politics of the workplace. Sally Rudka noticed this reaction as a picket captain in Oshawa at the Ministry of Finance: "All of a sudden, we were liberated being put on a picket line because the adversarial relationship becomes okay. We're normally forced to be nice to our managers, but now we're in a group that becomes a mob. It's okay to say, 'Get out of here you dickhead.'" Rudka also noticed a "correlation between bad departments and picket line militancy," though she thought it also depended on the nature of the work: "I found that people who worked in production - in a high-volume stressful work environment, who quite often didn't have progressive management - lashed out the most. Those with more professional relationships took a different approach on the picket line. They were less combative." Health workers had strong reasons for going on the picket line. Annemarie Powell, a laboratory technologist with the Ministry of Health in Peterborough, explained: "Our concern was privatization. We would have no control over the type of work. The strike brought that to a head. We were concerned that during the strike work of the lab would go to private labs. They were eager for our work. The strike seemed to be the only place to voice an opinion." Nancy Pridham, a psychiatric nursing assistant at Queen Street Mental Health Centre in Toronto, had an additional concern: "The strike was making a political statement about the destruction of mental health services - the most vulnerable group of people getting left behind. That's what it was about for me as well. If I don't keep my job, then untrained people who don't know anything will come into the system." Many of those interviewed remarked how women often were more militant than men on the picket line. "Every time there was a confrontation, it was women," said Dianne Gallupe of North Bay. "Men stayed across the street. Men shied away from being 'in a union.' Women had more at stake. There were a lot of single moms. It was their only income, and they fought for it. The difference between minimum wage and what they make can make or break you." Steve Nield of Sarnia agreed, pointing out that "many of the picket captains were women." Sally Rudka, herself a picket captain, cited a good example of women's militancy: "I got a call from Whitby Jail asking for support. We had lots of picketers. We put forty-eight ladies on a bus and sent them to Whitby Jail. They were a flying picket squad. They went for the whole day. They were stopping the food trucks. They shut down the jail. They were mostly OAG [office workers]. When it was over, the folks at Whitby Jail called and said, 'Can you send those picketers back tomorrow?'" Fred Upshaw, former president of OPSEU, observed: "I've seen locals that are 90 per cent women that were militant. Whitby Psych had a

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twenty-four-hour line. Women did the overnight. In my opinion, some of those women would put a lot of those Corrections guys to shame. Women suffer more abuse from their managers. When they went on a strike, they had a chance to hit back. They took out all the frustration that they had suffered over the years." It was true that where labour relations were most backward, the picket lines were most militant. Some women had suffered abuse at work for years, and they could now react as they felt. Women had the most to lose from the Common Sense Revolution and the neoconservative attack on equity, unions, and wages. In the OPSEU strike, they used the picket line to strike back. The picket line was a also a platform where workers could speak their minds, lashing out at the Common Sense Revolution, at restructuring, downsizing, and privatization. Workers are normally excluded from these debates; their general welfare is rarely even an afterthought. But a union gave them a voice, and a strike gave them a platform to speak to the press, to state their views, not just about the strike but about all the economic and political forces set loose by the Harris government. The strike put the OPSEU workers in the limelight. A microphone was stuck in their faces, and they spoke right into it. They had plenty to say, because the current round of bargaining was about concessions. Thousands of civil servants were going to lose their jobs - but what would the terms of exit be? It looked as if the employer was going to deny any responsibility for the fate of the employee who got a pink slip; that the employer would deny any rights to an employee whose job was transferred to another employer; and that the employer would deny older laid-off civil servants access to the early retirement packages enjoyed by other workers. These are the significant labour relations issues of the 19905, rolled up into our collective-bargaining dispute: training, severance, job security, and pensions. The strike was not about downsizing or even outsourcing. OPSEU accepted the inevitability of the layoffs. The strike was about the size of the step backwards for civil servants. The very essence of the Common Sense Revolution is to cheapen the price of labour and open the door for private investment regardless of the consequences. History was moving backwards for working people across the world, across Canada, across Ontario, but for five weeks in the winter of 1996, 30,000 OPSEU members stood on their picket lines and said No. And all of Ontario was watching. The picket line was also a place where OPSEU members could voice their anger about life at work: the e-mails and warnings about downsizing and unemployment, the lost opportunities for advancement, the sexist remarks, the glass ceiling, the leers, the sneers, and the closed club at the top. All came pouring out on the picket line; they were rolled into a big ball of resentment, anger, and hostility.

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Although the strike did address many of the wider issues, it fell short in some areas, as was pointed out by Yvonne Bobb, a long-time activist in the labour movement and the movements for equality for women and racial minorities. As president of the Ontario Coalition for Black Trade Unionists in the late 19805 and as chair of the OPS Network fo Racial Minorities, she had long fought for equity and for rights for racial minorities. In these matters she was disappointed with OPSEU'S posture during the strike: "We didn't do enough to highlight the devastation to racial minorities or to fight the withdrawal of employment equity." But Bobb is also a veteran of OPSEU activism. She was proud when OPSEU got the right to strike and when it went on strike. She picketed at the College Park office towers in downtown Toronto, where for years she had been on the local union executive: "If we hadn't stayed on the picket line, we could have lost everything with the stroke of a pen. The collective agreement defended us, and we defended the collective agreement." PICKET LINE ENCOUNTERS

Work was still going on in many Ontario government locations during the strike. There were about 26,000 people going in to work, including the essential service workers, and these 26,000 people had to cross a picket line at some point during the day. There were different types of nonstriking civil servants who approached the picket lines (and the politics of the picket line were expressed by the reception each type received). In addition, delivery and service vans and members of the general public had to cross the picket lines. The picketers thus encountered a wide range of people: managers, essential service workers, politicians, senior civil servants, AMAPCEO employees, volunteers, strikebreakers, police, delivery-truck drivers, members of the public seeking a government service, and the families of patients and inmates. Anyone who wanted to cross had to talk to the picket captain. The aim of the strikers was to make the crossing as unpleasant and difficult as possible, with some exceptions. How did some 26,000 nonstrikers get through about 30,000 strikers almost every day? And what did they say to each other? How did they react? Managers As noted above, relations with local management were turned upside down when managers had to deal with the picket line. Cindy Haynes of London remarked on this: "The roles were reversed drastically on the lines. We felt very powerful with our managers. They came to the

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line and we told them that they would have to wait. We held people for about twenty minutes. They felt powerless. But they were doing the same to our people [the essential services staff] in there. They outnumbered the corrections officers inside. Where there was one or two cos, there would be four to five managers." Bill Cross of the Ministry of Transportation in Kingston, boasted: "We stopped our own manager. We went nose to nose. He ain't going in today. We played games with them. Some days we'd let him in with no wait. The next day he would wait. The power relation was turned upside down." Marjorie Martin, the picket captain at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, said: "Managers got what they gave. If they were respectful, then no delay. Otherwise they waited." The civil service was not neutral during the strike. The job of management was to keep operations running as close to normal as possible: the closer to normal, the weaker the strike. Managers were recruited in this effort. Some managers opposed the strike, while others supported it. The contrast was illustrated in local 534, which represents the retail sales tax office and the property assessor's office, both at the Eglinton-Yonge intersection in Toronto. Tina Khan, who is on the local executive, reported: "At the retail sales tax office on 2300 Yonge Street there were many scab problems. Managers at 2,300 Yonge Street were leading scabs through different entrances." Yet there were no scabs at the property assessor's office. Ken Taylor was the picket captain there: "Our office has always been like a family. People moved their way up. It was tight knit. The commissioner [senior manager] in our office had some union background. He was the former treasurer of the local. During the strike he closed off the entire floor to the staff and the public." Some managers brought donuts, coffee, and soup to the picket line. This was greatly appreciated by Maureen Crabtree, who worked for the Ministry of Attorney General in Ottawa: "The management support that we had was wonderful. One manager came out at 10 AM, lunch, and afternoon tea every day. Friday she bought us all french fries. Managers came from other provincial offices too. They sent down hot chocolate. We're on the same side." Brian Lowry, who was with the Ministry of Transportation, also in Ottawa, was more sceptical: "The managers did that because they didn't want trouble when we came back. They didn't want that strength of the picket line when we came back. That's why they brought us coffee." Bill Cross also thought the generosity was to avoid trouble: "They wanted easy access. They thought they could buy you with a donut." In London, Sandra Noad refused to take the donuts: "The director from the Ministry of Community and Social Services brought coffee to the picket line every

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morning and in the afternoon brought cider. I felt it was wrong. It was making the picketers feel guilty." At Queen's Park, management went to extraordinary lengths to get in to work. Rosie Allingham, who works for the registrar general and was president of local 502., commented: "Sometimes we came in the middle of the night. We saw managers entering and leaving the building." MNR managers, she said, stayed at the Sutton Place, a pricey hotel across the street from Queen's Park. In the third week of the strike Premier Mike Harris himself delivered donuts to a picket line in North Bay. Kelly Loxton was the picket captain there: Mike Harris drove up in a minivan. There was ski equipment in the back of the van. Harris handed one of the pickets a couple boxes of donuts and said, "We want to see you folks back to work." When I realized what was going on I gave the donuts back, said, "Sorry, we cannot accept these." He took them back and left. He kinda had a smirk on his face. It was planned. He wanted to test the ground. I was angry. The other picketers got angry at me. "Why did you give them back? He was just being nice." At first I questioned my decision but then said, "He's the reason we're out here. We have enough donuts." The media treated it as a joke: "Mike Harris always has time for Tim Hortons."

The picket line became an alternative authority structure during the strike. Rob Fairley explained it this way: "Managers understood that during the strike. That's why they visited the picket lines and brought coffee, to maintain the bond. They saw power developing on the picket line." Strikebreakers Rob Fairley argues that strikebreakers have misplaced priorities: "Scabs accept the dominant ideology, cynicism - 'Don't fight. There's nothing you can do anyway.' They accept their relationship with the boss. It is more important than the relationship with their co-workers." The scabs were indeed trapped in a logic of cynicism. Once they crossed the picket lines, they abandoned any belief in ideals, hope, or justice. They had to become hard-nosed cynics like their Tory bosses. The striker and the scab lived on two different planets. The most chilling account of scabs that I heard occurred near Orillia. Roy Lawder is the president of local 341, Millbrook Correctional Centre, and he was part of a flying picket squad that was active in the Orillia-Peterborough area: "Shortly after the demonstration at Queen's Park, we boarded a bus for the OPP headquarters in Orillia. There wer hundreds of scabs there. We heard that they were getting paid at a

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hockey rink in a nearby community centre, so we went over there. They were protected by the police and the OPP and were inside the rink behind the glass. We were looking through the glass. Three women were staring at us. We were calling them scabs. One took her paycheque out of her purse, displayed it on the window, and threw us a kiss with her lips." Bev Toivonen, an OPSEU Executive Board member, also witnessed this scene: "The scabs held their paycheques up, adding fuel to the fire. The police said we had to let them out. But they kept their distance, avoiding a repeat of the previous week [the violence at Queen's Park on 18 March]. They agreed to give us a five-minute delay for each car if we let them out. There must have been 70 cars. It took over three hours. There was yelling and screaming. Some started crying. The corrections officers were pretty intense. The Millbrook flying squad always brought a trumpeter. He played 'When the Scabs Go Marching In.'" Scabs were a frequent topic of conversation among OPSEU strikers. Steve Nield in Sarnia recalled: "We had five scabs. They became a motivational vocal point for our members on strike; we despised them and wanted to confront them. We used to go into work and confront them. It became a daily focus of discussion." Evelyn Anger, in Windsor, went to picket an OPP office where there were some scabs: "I went in to tal with the sergeant. I sent everybody else away, but I hung around myself. A car pulled over and went around the back of the building. The scabs jumped in. I chased them in my car. I chased them down the 401. I called strike headquarters on my cellphone. I was put on the speaker phone and everybody was cheering me on as I was chasing them." James Gushing, who works for the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) in Toronto, spoke of the scabs at the MTO complex on the 401: "Scab were let off on the 401, ran up the hill and cut through the fences. The Canadian Tire manager remembers selling lots of bolt cutters." Sue Brown, at North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, described how Dianne Gallupe had come to the hospital picket line to tell them that there were four scabs from Brown's local in the head office: "We tightened our line at the hospital - nobody in, nobody out - and sent support to the Corrections building until the four scabs left. We stayed for four and a half hours." Diane Gallupe said that about fifty picketers from Brown's local came to support the Corrections picket line: "The scabs came in around 10 AM. They sat in a boardroom and left by 3 PM. There were about two hundred picketers at that point. When they came out a big cheer went up from the crowd." Meanwhile, the government was counting the scabs; it wanted to show that workers would cross the picket line. Malcolm Smeaton,

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Coordinator of the government's strike response team, had doubts about this policy: It was an issue from the very beginning. Most managers in labour relations don't have a positive view of people who do that except in situations that are illegal or irresponsible. People were crossing from the first day. We counted every day at every work location, twice daily. We had a data program. People sent in the data. We had a two-person statistics team who would compile the data once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I met with the senior bureaucrats at noon and met with the minister every day. We had great concern about reporting the numbers. They'd be dismissed by the union anyway. When the decision was made to talk about it in public, which I opposed, it becomes salt in the wound. It firmed up the union's resolve to deal with it. Now you've got confrontation. My job was to keep it quiet.

John Gregoire from Ottawa blames the government for the scabs. "The government wanted to show that workers would cross the picket line." Essential Service Workers Essential service workers had to go to work. OPSEU had negotiated separate agreements with the employer about which jobs were essential, and there were about 12,000 essential service workers. Their presence made it more difficult for OPSEU to conduct a strike; but as was discussed earlier, that was the only way we could get the right to strike. There was much anger about essential services. It was a major issue in the institutions, courts, abattoirs, laboratories, and highways. The most contentious areas were the jails, where the essential service workers performed under extremely difficult circumstances. The fact that only 34 per cent of corrections officers had been declared essential created health and safety problems inside the jails. Steve Lauzon from Sudbury found the situation frustrating: "We're damned if we do and damned if we don't." Essential service workers in the prisons faced very difficult as well as dangerous working conditions, for they were still under the supervision of the managers, who tried to use them to weaken the picket lines. Many also had to face hostility from the picketers. Essential service workers were frequently caught in disputes between the picket line and the employer. In Corrections, the employer sometimes held back the worker until the next shift came in; but the next shift wouldn't come in until the previous shift was released. Cindy Haynes described what happened at the Elgin-Middlesex jail in London. "One night the management called to the picket line asking for

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extra workers, but our work-site rep wouldn't agree, so they held the staff at switch time." At Whitby Psychiatric Hospital the picket line forced a showdown over an essential service worker who was doing nonessential work. Joan Gates described the incident: "We were holding essential service workers for four hours. The cooks inside were cooking for the employer, which they weren't supposed to do. They then held the cook and then the others. We held everybody. The day staff couldn't go in. Some went home. The night staff couldn't be released. It became a standoff." The main issue for picketers was that essential service workers received their full pay (minus the 30 per cent union dues) while strikers got only the $ioo-a-week strike pay. This caused resentment, even though the essential service workers could not be on strike. At Whitby Psychiatric Hospital, "people were getting pissed off," said Joan Gates. "Some wards were totally closed. If you worked there, you couldn't be in the draw."1 They had been trying to negotiate a rotation similar to that in Corrections. The corrections officers had negotiated a twoweek shift for essential service workers. One group would work for two weeks and then return to the picket line, whereupon another group would take over the work. This was highly unusual and created both scorn and envy. Steve Lauzon from Sudbury asked, "Is this half a strike?" Similarly, Dominic Bragaglia of Windsor Jail "didn't feel good" about the rotation or the essential services. The relationship between strikers and essential service workers turned particularly sour at the public health laboratories in Peterborough, where twelve of the eighteen positions had been declared essential. In the third week of the strike, the union leadership and staff in Peterborough decided that there was too much "business as usual" at the laboratory, and on Thursday morning they brought in the Millbrook flying squad to shake things up. They held the essential service workers for hours and demanded a protocol with the management. The employer eventually agreed, but the essential service worker felt bad. Rina Retallick, a senior technologist and an essential service worker, explained why: "We were all in this together before the strike vote. We were stacked inside and felt bad about it, but we did a lot as essential service workers. We went out every lunch. We organized a soup kitchen. We wrote letters to the papers and the MPPS. Our families wrote letters. We thought we were doing the best we could. We felt jammed in because of our professional ethics. There is a patient; the work was essential. All was fine for two weeks. Then, one morning when we showed up, we were confronted by jail guards. We had no warning. I felt betrayed, alone, isolated. We had to negotiate an agreement with the union. We should have been notified. We became the

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enemy. We continued going out during lunch, but it was hard." However, Maureen Carlson, president of the local, was pleased with the results: "We got a protocol with a fifteen-minute delay. It applied to the trucks too. It made the place feel like it was on strike." Essential service workers were undoubtedly in a very difficult position. The government tried to get as much work out of them as possible, and OPSEU tried to get them to work as little as possible. They were caught in a no man's land between the two. Under the essential services agreement, union leaders could exempt themselves from the draw, and the vast majority did. But some didn't. Those who went to work weakened the picket lines as well as the credibility of the union. I personally remember going to the picket line at the laboratories in north Toronto where the local vice-president was inside working. About a hundred picketers screamed at me for about thirty minutes. There was nothing I could do. Malcolm Smeaton, the coordinator of the government's strike response team, knew the difficulties around essential services work from previous strikes in the public sector: "I was realistic. I knew that I could get away with it the first and second week. By the third week, people would have become familiar with the routine of the strike, and I knew that sooner or later the magic would wear off. Having dealt with essential service strikes, I recognized that the first day when an essential service worker crosses the line people say, 'Good luck, you're doing what you're supposed to do.' Three weeks later, they say, 'I'm still on the picket line. You're crossing the line and picking up a pay. I'm not so pleased.'"

AMAPCEO It will be recalled that the Association of Management, Administrative, and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO) was the bargaining agent that represented the higher and more "professional" levels of the Ontario Public Service. Its members had received collective-bargaining rights through the efforts of OPSEU. During the campaign for labour law reform for provincial workers, OPSEU had argued that legislation excluded too many employees from collective bargaining. Before the 1993 CECBA reform, more than 20 per cent of employees had been excluded from collective bargaining, a far higher percentage than in any other province. With the 1993 reform, over seven thousand more civil servants received collective bargaining rights. Many of us thought that OPSEU was the logical choice to represent them, but this had not happened. As in any other workplace, interclass rivalries exist in the Ontario Public Service. Employees in the higher

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positions are closer to policy functions and the management structure. After the CECBA changes, they became known as the seventh bargaining unit (OPSEU being the bargaining agent for the other six). Although a large number of the employees in the seventh bargaining unit liked the idea of having a bargaining agent, many were not interested in being in a union. As their president, Gary Gannage, pointed out, "There is a different community of interests between the two groups." So they chose to go with their own creation, AMAPCEO. The reaction to AMAPCEO and its members on the picket line was mixed. We were on strike and they were not. Their relationship with OPSEU during the strike needs to be examined both institutionally and personally. The discussion on the institutional response is given in chapter 13, which deals with collective bargaining during the strike (their collective bargaining at that time had a strong impact on our bargaining). Here, therefore, I shall limit myself to the personal angle. Many of the strikers I interviewed were critical of AMAPCEO members, as the following comments reveal. Kelly Loxton of North Bay: "They didn't join the picket line. They benefited from us. They never acknowledged that." Steve Nield of Sarnia: "AMAPCEO? No sign of them." Joan Gates of Whitby: "They never walked the line with us. They were doing our work. They were obnoxious." Will Presley of North Bay: "They were nonexistent during the strike. There were no overtures." Sandra Noad of London: "About eight out of thirty or forty walked the line with us. Some others brought donuts. Once they signed their deal, they walked the line with us. They did not do so beforehand." Cheryl Jordan of Woodstock: "There was animosity with AMAPCEO, both ways. They didn't support us. At the Oxford Regional Centre, one did our work." Cesar Dacanay in Toronto: "In the middle of the second week the members surrounded the building and staged a total shutdown picket. The members were fed up. People were going in and out. AMAPCEO and management were chuckling at the picketers before that." Similarly, Sue Brown in North Bay described how her local turned the AMAPCEO members away: "We kept them out for a week. They came in one van every day. When picketers decided they could cross, they had to get out of the van and cross the line. We had people on the inside watching to see they weren't doing our work." Other strikers I interviewed had good things to say about AMAPCEO members. Anne Caspar of Windsor told me: "They knew that we were out there fighting for them too. They brought us food, marched on the picket line on their breaks and lunch. They were open about their support. The employer knew that." Bea Visintin, who worked at the Ministry of Health in Kingston, said: "There were about fifty AMAPCEO members where I work. They were wonderful. They would give us a

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cheque regularly, about a thousand dollars in all. They respected the protocol and joined us on the picket line." Carol Piccini of Toronto also was full of praise: "AMAPCEO members often joined our picket lines during lunch. Managers and AMAPCEO brought out food." Pierre Brunet of Peterborough had a similar experience: "AMAPCEO came out on breaks with coffee and cookies. They gave us a cash donation. That was for the picketers." Steve Lauzon, of the Cecil Facer Youth Centre in Sudbury, thought that they were being used by the ministry. "The AMAPCEO people came in and left every day. We wanted them to join our picket lines. They didn't at first. We made a stink and then they showed up. They were threatened by the employer. They had no other choice but we expected some show of support. They asked for free passage [through the picket line] and they'd walk the line. They finally agreed to stop on the picket line for ten minutes and join us on breaks. Before that, they were being smuggled in. They were being used by the employer." The Public and Volunteers Members of the public sometimes came to the picket line seeking a public service (though in some cases that service that did not exist during the strike). Barry Weisleder, an OPSEU Executive Board member, remembers standing with the picket line at a Ministry of Health office in Toronto: "A doctor came to the line and asked to go in. 'What's the reason?' 'A man in Africa just phoned in for approval for surgery' and he had to get in or the man's life would be at risk. We let him in. He came out, thanked us, and said he supported the strike. The workers exercised control, and we exercised it responsibly." Sandra Noad of London also felt that they had acted responsibly: "We were a family benefits office. We let the clients through. At times they said they felt uncomfortable crossing our lines. We weren't going to stop welfare recipients. We let people into the Ministry of Health office as well. They would register for health care. If they weren't registered, they couldn't get health coverage. We didn't want to put hardship onto the public. The public was supportive. They would sometimes join the lines. Sometimes a social worker would council a client on the line." Many hospitals had volunteers doing various kinds of work, including Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital. Marjorie Martin, who was the president of the local, said, "We didn't want volunteers doing our work, particularly recreation work." So picketers denied the volunteers entry. But the government then applied for an injunction. "The court ordered us to let three in; but they couldn't do our work."

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Families of Inmates and Patients At institutions and jails, family and friends of patients and inmates had to approach the picket line when they were visiting. Dominic Bragaglia, at Windsor Jail, explained: "We didn't want trouble with the families of inmates. We delayed them a bit. We told them why we were on strike, but we would never prevent them from getting in. That wouldn't be a good idea." Similarly, Marjorie Martin said that family members were allowed to visit at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital. "One day a picketer banged on a visitor's car and delayed him. He got upset. I escorted him to the door and told him he was right to be upset. We moved the picketer to another spot. We gave family members a card." Norma Wrightly, a residential counsellor at Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls, recalled: "When people came to visit we would assure them that there was no problem with family visiting. Somebody on the picket line usually knew the family member. We would talk to them about the strike but would never delay them." Sue Brown, of the North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, agreed: "Of course, visitors were allowed in. We didn't want to be cold-hearted bastards. There was no controversy over that." Service Vans and Delivery Trucks When service vans and delivery trucks showed up at the picket lines, problems often arose about the ease or difficulty of their crossing the line. "We stopped an empty food truck," recalled Eileen Whitmore, a program instructor at Rideau Regional Centre. "It was a setup. There was a conflict between the administrator and the local president. She had broken a verbal agreement. Food trucks were supposed to come on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday between eight and two. This one came on Friday, and Mike [the local president] wouldn't let it through. They opened up the truck and we saw it was not full. They had enough food at the end of the strike for the residents for over a month." At a water treatment plant near Windsor, the chemical trucks were held up for thirty minutes before being let in. "Deliveries were supposed to be during the day; it was part of the protocol," said Marie Thomson, who worked there. "But one night, management called them in after the pickets were down. The gate was unlocked. We got the picket line right back up. Management had lied. Next day, we put up a picket line and we wouldn't let in essential service workers. It was resolved in Toronto." Sally Rudka said that at the Ministry of Finance head office in Oshawa, they blocked the trucks the first day of the strike to cause as

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much upheaval as possible: "The source of the Ministry of Finance is money, so we blocked the trucks at the garage. After all, this is the money factory." At the Ministry of Transportation in St Catharines, Dan McKnight and his fellow picketers "asked the posties not to cross our lines." The postal trucks went only to a certain point and managers had to come out to unload. The Police The police had an ambiguous relationship with the strikers. As public servants who negotiated through a bargaining agent, they could understand the strike. On the other hand, the police traditionally oppose disruption. During the strike, they often trod very carefully. For instance, Bill Cross, a member of the flying squad who worked for the Ministry of Transportation in Kingston, received a call that two salt trucks wanted to get into a yard on Highway 401: "When we got to the yard, there were five cruisers and two paddy wagons. The OPP officer said the trucks had to get in. I said no. I told the cop that the barns were supposed to be empty first. They checked the essential services agreement and realized that I was right, and they left." Bente Miller, a policy analyst with the Ministry of Health in Kingston, had a less friendly encounter: "On the last Thursday of the strike we wanted a scab-free day, but the police escorted the scabs as they had done for many mornings. We were beefed up by the flying squad. When they came, we turned over control to them. I was arrested for public mischief. I wouldn't let the scabs through. There were eighty of us on the line that day, and eight were arrested. A week earlier I had stepped in front of a scab after the police had said he should go through. I wasn't arrested then, but it was remembered and I was arrested the next week." One curious incident occurred at the Elgin-Middlesex jail, where the London fire department was concerned about open fire pits which the picketers were using for warmth. Virgery Vanier, a staff representative in London, was expecting the police to arrive, but she knew that her picketers were allowed to barbecue food, and this gave her an idea: "I told all the picket lines that if the police appeared, they should make sure they were barbecuing something. Well, they only had donuts. When the police came, they quickly threw on the donuts. I told the cops that donuts do freeze." The open fire pits remained alight, and next day the picketers brought more appropriate food to barbecue. Sergeant Jim Muscat of the Metropolitan Toronto Police monitored the strike in Toronto, where they set up a special OPSEU task force: "Officers from each division were trained in industrial liaison. We had

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officers trained in each of the seventeen divisions. They had picket lines in their own divisions. Some had two or three. I was in the command post. It was a comprehensive plan. There were at least two hundred and fifty picket lines in Toronto, and the overwhelming majority were peaceful. Hardly anyone was crossing the picket line." Throughout the province, OPSEU strikers noticed the difference between the behaviour of local police and the Ontario Provincial Police. The OPP tended to side with th employer, whereas the local police were trained to handle disputes. According to Diane Gallupe, North Bay was an exception: "A scab herder1 met strikebreakers and called the police at 7 AM. The police escorted the scabs through the line. We yelled at the police and the scabs, there was pushing and shoving, and a few people were arrested for mischief and trespassing. They were fined $250 each. Relations with the cops were bad - a lot of overtime for nothing. Once I was there at 5 PM. There were twenty cops for two picketers and five scabs. I asked them, 'Do I have a gun that you need all these cops?'" Wayne Campbell, who picketed at the Ministry of Corrections head office at North Bay, also complained about the aggressive behaviour of the police. But he pointed out that it was a "high-profile building" in a "high-profile riding": "The building is right in Mike Harris's riding. It's not far from his constituency office." Politicians Even though Mike Harris had delivered donuts to a picket line in North Bay, he had not stayed to talk to the picketers to try and understand why his donuts had been refused. There was very little direct contact between Tory MPPS and the picketers, though sometimes a Tory MPP would go to a picket line to be provocative. In the fifth week of the strike, Terence Young, the MPP for Halton Centre, approached a picket line at Queen's Park and was overheard saying, "Oh, they're nothing but a bunch of secretaries." There was a line of about fifty nonstrikers waiting their fifteen minutes to get in, but he didn't want to wait. The picketers told him to go to the Whitney Block, where MPPS had unimpeded entry - it was in the protocol - but he refused. After the violence of 18 March at Queen's Park, the relationship between politicians and picket lines became a major issue. This is discussed in chapter 12, which deals with legal issues. HOLD THE LINE

From the very first day of the strike, the government maintained a picket-free entrance at its most populated and visible work site,

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Queen's Park. An underground tunnel connected the Queen's Park complex with the subway station. One entrance to the tunnel was owned by the Ontario government; the other was owned by the Toronto Transit Commission. Both exercised their property rights to bar picketing. The tunnel was demoralizing to the picket lines in the Queen's Park area. If scabs and management could gain picket-free entry to work at the tunnel, what was the point to picketing the regular entrances? On the third Monday of the strike, OPSEU picketers and supporters from the Steelworkers occupied the tunnel. "That was my first glimpse of the OPP riot squad," said Gary Shaul. "I saw them lurking in the background." The government and the TTC each applied fo an injunction to ban all picketing in the tunnel, but the court sided with the strikers, and picketing was permitted there for the duration of the strike. The picketers had "held the line." Holding the line could be a tough business, as Anne Caspar, president of local 13 3 in Windsor, discovered: We were being threatened with an injunction at 2.50 Windsor because the building had a family court, even though there were other ministry offices in the building. The staff rep, the lawyer, and myself decided to negotiate a protocol. It was better to have limited picket rights than none at all ... But when court time came and I explained the situation to my picketers, about negotiating a compromise, they said absolutely not: 'We don't care if we lose the site. It's all or nothing. We refuse to allow you to deal with these people.' So I had to tell the lawyer to drop it. He was afraid he'd get charged with bad faith bargaining. I thought we were dead, but to my surprise the judge allowed us to go on the way we always had. I thought he was taking a personal risk. But he had worked with the OPSEU members. He had worked with us for years.

There was a similar stand taken at the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board office in Toronto, where Teenie Gibson was the picket captain: "On one of the last days of the strike we were doing a blockade. The cop asked if we would settle for a delay. We went to the members and they said No. You could see in their eyes it was out of our control." Multi-entranced, privately owned office buildings that housed government offices were very difficult to picket, if not impossible, because the principle of picketing rights ran up against the principle of property rights. Nevertheless, in the third week of the strike the union started a campaign of building invasions. "At 2300 Yonge Street we took the picketers right to the elevator," recalled Barry Weisleder. "We closed off the access and negotiated a protocol with the building management. We did the same at the Ministry of Health building at Yonge

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and Finch." An attempt was also made at the land registry office in downtown Toronto, though the office was in a large building that had more than twenty entrances. "We had read in the newspaper how the land registry office wasn't affected by the strike," said picket captain Violette Boutros. "So on 15 March, the busiest day of the month, about three hundred of us went to the doors of the office inside the building and put up a picket line. The police finally came. But we stayed for over an hour." In Hamilton, it was an underground parking lot that caused problems. "Scabs were getting into the building from a city lot," said picket captain Ed Faulknor. "We ended up picketing the entire parking lot. Nobody got in. We met with Mayor Morrow, and they agreed to lock the doors that connected to our building. So we pulled down the picket lines to the lot." One of the most original efforts at holding the line was organized by picket captain Sally Rudka at the Ministry of Finance head office building in Oshawa. Even though she was running a twenty-four-hour picket, Rudka was having difficulty keeping the scabs out, so they decided to try something different: "Five of us got together and bought a linked chain that could not be easily cut. We put the chain in a bucket and brought it to the front of the building. Each person had a combination lock but didn't have the number. We looped the chain around the pillar, attached it to the door and then locked it around our ankles. We brought a boom box and played "Chain Gang." The picket line loved it. But the employer called the cops. They cut the chains and put the chain gang onto a paddy wagon. We were charged with trespassing." Even symbolic picket lines had to be protected. Karan Prince, picket captain in Renfrew, told the following story: "Two days after the incident at Queen's Park we built a snowman with buttons and signs in front of the OPP office. It was a twenty-four-hour picket. Later, a small group of us went back to the OPP office. Our snowman was stark naked, no buttons or signs. We put them back on. We got a camera and hid in two cars. A woman OPP officer came out, took off the buttons and signs and put the boot to the snowman." On Z4 March an account of the attack on the snowman picket, with pictures, appeared in the Renfrew News.

CHAPTER 9

The Picket Line Community

The strike was the hardest I ever worked for the least amount of money, but it was the most gratifying. Anne Caspar, local 133, Windsor On the first day back to work after the strike, the management team said to me that they've been trying to create a team environment for years but that we did it on the picket line in five weeks. Dan McKnight, local 270, St Catharines

For five weeks, OPSEU strikers lived as a community on the picket line, sharing their lives with one another. The strike gave birth to that community, and the community defined the strike. The strike was a coming together of people in a common cause - people who believed in new-found possibilities and in each other. The wider culture teaches passivity and cynicism, but the strikers believed that what they were doing mattered in the course of human events. The slogans of the strike resonated throughout the picket lines. "We won't back down!" "No Justice, No Peace!" These are not your standard corporate slogans designed to manipulate workers and consumers. These are expressions of a union of workers on strike. The strike community lived inside the wider culture as an aberration, an anomaly. Just as the picket line was an inverted reflection of workplace power, so was the strike culture an inverted reflection of the wider culture. Cynicism was transformed into optimism, passivity into animation. The controlled took charge. At the centre of the strike were people who were linking arms with the millions of workers who have ever been on strike.

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Culture is a mirror that people use to get a better understanding of their lives, their work, their friends and their community. The strike created a dissident culture, which itself became many expressions of the strike. This chapter looks at some of the cultural forms of the strike - poems, chants, even a short play - as well as at the community that provided the body through which the strike lived. The community at a typical workplace is based on power and hierarchy, though management and human resource planners create the illusion of commonality by such means as teams, quality circles, worker participatory restructuring, (selected) information sharing, efficiency campaigns, and productivity drives. Most workers recognize these as the control mechanisms that they are. However, this illusion of commonality makes it more difficult to speak out. The picket line community was different. Unlike the wider community or the community at work, the picket line was homogeneous. Its only reference point was the strike. Every event and every person was tied together by the strike; it was a community of one interest. Everyone on the picket line had a personal interest in every other picketer on every other OPSEU picket line right across Ontario: "Stay on the picket line until the union says the strike is over ... Don't go into work." That was a pretty strong tie. That was the basis of our community. People listened to one another on the picket line. They learned about each other's kids and families, their hopes and fears. The strike caused a transition in loyalty from the employer to the union. Wayne Ireson from the negotiating team recalled that "before the strike vote, members would look on the employer as their family," but the strike changed that. "People understood that we were part of one big family," said Wayne Campbell of North Bay. He travelled around the picket lines in his truck, telling the strikers what was happening on other picket lines. "The unity came together after we started cross-picketing," observed Evelyn Anger of Windsor. "People in the same building who didn't know each other got together." Ed Faulknor of Hamilton agreed: "I met and learned more about the people in my building than in all the years I worked there." Trading your regular paycheque for $ioo-a-week strike pay is a serious commitment. It says to the government that you are prepared to back the union and that you are prepared to pay the price for doing so. Political struggle was new for many members of OPSEU. They were civil servants. They worked in offices and laboratories. They looked after people in institutions. They fixed roads. They led reasonably normal and staid lives, controlled by the clock and by management practices that imposed an artificial order. And suddenly they were on strike. The strike turned them into people they wouldn't have recognized a day earlier.

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Thousands of civil servants, for the first time in their lives, found themselves living as an opposition community. The customary practices of life were put on hold. They went to "the edge," a different way of living. Previously, their relationship with OPSEU had been limited to the paycheque deduction and maybe an occasional meeting. If you wanted to get ahead at work, you didn't associate too closely with the union, but the strike had turned that world upside down. Now the union was everything. Members put their trust in the union, not just to negotiate a better contract but to stand up to this new government. In a very political way, civil servants were standing in opposition to the management of the OPS enterprise; they were connected to a rich tra dition of labour unrest, strikes, and union opposition. They had to accustom themselves to new ways of living, for the strike pay was so low. It was more a gesture from the union than real compensation. Meanwhile, they went to their picket lines every day and got to know each other in entirely new ways. They sang disrespectful songs about the government, they screamed outrageous slogans, and paid close attention to the media, always looking for (and usually finding) stories about "their strike." They wrote for and read union publications, and they tried to guess what was happening in the bargaining. Although they missed the paycheques, they stayed on the picket line until the bitter end. "It took a tremendous amount of faith to stay on the picket line for a hundred dollars a week not knowing about the bargaining," said Sal Santos, president of local 516 at the Eaton Centre in Toronto. The picket line community that developed and flourished over the five weeks of the strike had all the ingredients of a standard community: a common interest (the outcome of the strike), a common experience (the strike), social events (dances, parties, cooking, and meals), culture (songs, poems, music, chants, and drama), ideology (workingclass struggle), social welfare (hardship, food banks, scrounging, and counselling), legalities (picket line protocols, injunctions, and dealings with the police), bureaucracy (picket line regimen, overseeing essential service work, and strike pay distribution), rumours, its own vocabulary (see appendix A), its own media (newsletters and videos), and its own economy (food banks, donations, and vouchers). PICKET LINE ADMINISTRATION

The picket line was "work"; things had to be organized and carried out. This was done under the leadership of the picket captains who ran the picket line, as well as by the local strike finance committee that administered the strike pay and by the communications committee that

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distributed Picket Lines and other bulletins. Rallies were organized and advertised. Picketers learned and composed chants and slogans. They scrounged necessities such as wood, food, and fire barrels. They wrote newsletters, negotiated protocols, supported other picket lines, handed out literature, coffee, soup, and donuts, and picketed for endless hours in freezing weather. They accepted donations, handled hardship cases, handed out strike leaflets to the public. They delayed people. They cooked fabulous meals. They built snowmen picketers. Agatha McPhee was the coordinator of OPSEU'S accounting services, whose department was responsible for administering and getting out the strike pay. This involved receiving the local rosters, verifying the information, and getting out the cheques. She had an overly modest description when I asked her about administering strike funds centrally: "We were proud to have played a small but hopefully significant part in this historic event." Strike pay had to be distributed to 267 locals. It was a complex task, and Ron Elliot realized how vitally important it was: "I told Bill Kuehnbaum [the union treasurer] before the strike to get the money to the locals. One day of missed pay could break it. It worked. They did a wonderful job." Over the course of the strike, the union paid out $16,832,960 to the picketers. Although the strike pay was $100 a week, each dependant increased the pay by $10 to a maximum of $140, so the average strike pay was about $120 a week. Pam Doig, who worked in the union's central mobilization and strike headquarters, believed it was the administration that held the strike together. "Almost everything you do is administration. How do you get to the membership? How do they get back to you? When they're on the street, you need to get them the strike pay. They don't need to hear that we have a glitch. If we can't do the paperwork, then how can we lead? You have to prove that you're worthy of the members' confidence. You have to be at the other end of the phone." The picket captains maintained a picket line roster, which was signed by anybody who did picket duty. Picket duty was usually walking the picket line with a picket sign for four hours, but it could be some other strike-supporting activity, such as distributing newsletters or preparing soup and coffee. For the first week, the union's head office advanced the local strike-pay funds based on the number of members, but after that the roster was sent to head office each week. OPSEU head office then sent the strike pay to the local's bank account, and the local finance committee gave out the strike pay every Friday. The local finance committee was usually headed by the local treasurer. Essential services agreements also had to be administered. Every work site that had essential service workers also had a union work-site

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representative who was recognized as such by both the union and the employer. There was also a management work-site representative for each site. The union representative checked that essential service workers were doing only essential services work and also that non-OPSEU people were not doing OPSEU work. Any union work-site representative who thought that there were violations could file a "workplace dispute resolution form," which was sent to the bargaining teams in Toronto for resolution. For instance, local 649'$ president, Darryl Taylor, who was an ambulance attendant in Timmins, said "We'd file a workplace dispute resolution form if the air ambulance was dispatched on a nonessential call. For a heart attack, absolutely. For a sprained ankle, no." Essential services workers were covered by the collective agreement that was in place before the strike, as well as by all workplace legislation, such as the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Another component of picket line administration was contending with the local management. In Kingston, Nella Belcastro thought her cellphone was bugged: "One day we organized a pancake party for the picket line. On that same day the managers organized a pancake party for the insiders, including the scabs. One manager came through the picket line to buy syrup. On another occasion we planned to skip picketing in the morning to picket at the end of the day instead - at the back of the building, to block the scabs from leaving. That day the security was bolstered in the back of the building at the end of the day. Management took notes and videotaped the picket line regularly." There were other instances of picket lines being videotaped. On the first day of "legal" picketing at the Queen's Park tunnel, the Ontario government and the Toronto Transit Commission had between them about fifteen people filming, watching, taking notes, and interviewing line crossers. In North Bay Sue Brown's picket line also was watched: "There was a woman out there taking notes trying to build up a case for an injunction." Similarly, Anne Caspar remembers being filmed on her picket line in Windsor: "They videoed us from the window and identified people that way. Thirty-two of us were arrested for trespassing." MANAGING PICKET

LINES

Managing the picket lines was yet another facet of strike administration. At first, there was apprehension about running a picket line. Belcastro remembers the first few days in Kingston: "At the beginning we had no idea what we were doing. It then fell together. Our city council put in obstacles. We needed a piece of land for the strike vehicle. First they gave permission but then they pulled it." Bea Visintin continued the story: "We then got an ex-bake shop as a strike headquarters. The

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first three days we had nowhere to go. A local business, some glass blowers, had let us go in to use their washrooms and get warm." Ifi Zafiriadis, a picket captain from my own local, local 503 in Toronto, had also been a novice at the beginning of the strike. "At first we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't even carry picket signs. We didn't know our rights. The first few days we picketed on the sidewalks away from the building. Then we got closer and closer. Then we went up to the door and they [the building's management] called the police. Finally we stayed there." The strength of the picket lines was uneven. Some were far stronger than others. The union used flying picket squads to bolster the weaker lines and for special assignments, such as confronting and blocking scabs. The flying squad in the Peterborough and Orillia area was dubbed the Mob Squad. It was called in by Pierre Brunet to bolster the picket line at a shopping mall in Peterborough. The Mob Squad succeeded in shutting down the mall. It was also called in to help the picket line at the Orillia OPP office, where there were many scabs, and it was called to the public health labs in Peterborough. This last resulted in a picket line protocol; it also resulted in some bad feelings. Some people in the local had not expected such strong tactics. But as Bev Toivonen, who orchestrated some of the action of the Mob Squad said, once the flying squad was called into a location, "Nobody gets in." Roy Lawder, a member of the Mob Squad, remembered getting calls from picket lines in Lindsay, Haliburton, Minden, Peterborough, and Orillia: "They weren't as strong as us. Fifteen to twenty of us would go out." Bea Visintin remembers getting help from the Kingston flying squad for a show of force at the Ministry of Health office: "On the last Thursday we held the line. No scabs got in and AMAPCEO stayed away. We were helped out by the flying squirrels. There were forty to fifty of us on the ramp." Yvette Campeau of local 140 was part of the Windsor flying squad. "Everywhere we went there was trouble," she said. "There were a lot of isolated spots." Evelyn Anger described some of these spots: "We went to a secluded OPP office. There were scabs. We threw up some picket lines. We went to the home of a scab at the Ministry of Finance. The next day he joined his picket line. We went to the OCWA [Ontario Clean Water Agency] sewage treatment plant in Amherstberg. We went to the Agriculture and Food office in Essex. The manager was obnoxious. He was taunting the pickets. We went there with some teachers and put up a maze - the gauntlet in front of the door. Even the Essex police chief went through the gauntlet." Darryl Taylor's description of the situation in Timmins gives a good picture of picket line organization:

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We had our own flying squad. There were thirty-nine work locations in Timmins, with about five hundred members in the three locals; three hundred collected strike pay, sixty were essential service workers, and a hundred and thirty stayed home. We had seven scabs. We set up six picket line locations: an OPP office in South Porcupine, where most of the dispatchers were essential workers; a Ministry of Natural Resources building; another building with Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Northern Development and Mines offices; a Ministry of Transportation yard; a Ministry of Health public health lab; a property assessor's office; and the Timcor Building with Ministry of Labour and Community and Social Services offices. Most of our picket lines were near each other. We did not have enough picketers for more; seventy-eight picket shifts would have been ineffective. However, we did use our flying squad effectively. The flying squad was used to bolster the lines particularly where we knew a scab would try to enter. Once it snowed in the middle of the night. We called the flying squad, and a dozen real hard-core picketers showed up at the MT yard at 3 AM.

Most of the locals in Toronto used the "cluster" concept. Many of the Toronto locals were concentrated in certain areas of the city, and they were able to share resources and strike headquarters, and to help each other out. Local 504 in North York, for instance, was part of a cluster of four locals. The president, Gary Lawrence, explained: "A success of the strike was that we could concentrate our forces. OPSEU locals are small. They have scattered units. It was hard for a unit or even the local to act independently against management." Helping out other picket lines was another job for strikers. The picket line at North Bay Psychiatric Hospital sent its pickets to the head office of the Ministry of Correctional Services, and the picket line at the Ministry of Finance in Oshawa sent reinforcements to Whitby Jail. "People were strong and were willing to go further," said Will Presley of North Bay. "They went above and beyond the call of duty. When I told a carpenter from the Ministry of Transportation that people on the OPP line were cold, he went over there after his picket to build them a shelter. He wasn't even asked. He felt that he had to." Other unions helped out as well. Pat Shearer of Thunder Bay recalled that when they had problems with lawyers going to close their deals at the land registry office, the Fire Fighters' Association and the Lakehead Women's Teachers joined them in an action: "We got together with some women from the land registry office and agreed that they would all go into the office, take numbers, stand in line, and ask questions about their properties. They were the first ones in but the lawyers were served first. Our people made a riot in there. The next thing we knew the police showed up. It gave us so much more strength on our lines."

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Picket line administration was also about negotiating picket line protocols - the deals made between OPSEU and the employer about the details of the picketing. In the Queen's Park complex, OPSEU negotiated a protocol which stipulated that people could be delayed for fifteen minutes before being allowed into the building. Ken Taylor described how local 534 negotiated a protocol at a work site that had many entrances to the building: "We did a militant action at the Yonge-Eglinton centre. It's a privately owned property, so we couldn't picket on the property. We had to picket on the sidewalk, which was far from the doors. Autoworkers, powerworkers, steelworkers, and the OSSTF joined us. They all came, and we went right into the building, right to the elevator. We shut it right down. We stopped the scabs. We followed management through the secret stairways. They were escorting scabs. As a result, we got a protocol. It permitted twelve members to picket inside the building near the elevators from 7 AM until noon." Mike Laporte was involved with two separate actions that resulted in protocols. At his workplace at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, he heard that they were preparing food offsite and serving TV din ners to the patients: "Why then have cooks as essential service workers? We shut down their supply system. We blocked the trucks, linen services, and cockroach services. We signed a protocol for the entry of the trucks - no queueing and which entrances they could use." Laporte also became part of a flying squad that visited Ontario Place. Jim Paul, a staff strike organizer, had approached his group because the picket lines at Queen Street were strong: "He asked us to help problem picket lines. We went to Ontario Place to shore up the lines. Twenty of us showed up and we barricaded their entrances. We got a protocol. As a result, more of the scabs stayed out." RALLIES

The many rallies and demonstrations that were held during the strike were part of the strike culture. They were used by OPSEU to promote the aims of the strike, and they were also an effective way for strike sympathizers from other unions and opposition groups to show support. Above all, they helped maintain morale on picket lines, which tended to be low at the end of the week. Tony Carneiro from North York noticed that "it took a lot of work on Friday to get them back on Monday." Joan Gates made the same observation in Whitby: "We always had an event on a Friday with the aim to get people back on Monday. Friday earned you Monday: people went home on an 'up.'"

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Sally Rudka organized a rally in Oshawa on the first Friday of the strike in order to keep "the emotional level" high: "We pulled the afternoon shift, and all seven hundred picketers came in the morning." They closed down the Ministry of Finance building and the downtown core. "We invited other locals and other unions to join us. They brought three to four hundred and gathered in one place and marched to join us with their banners. CAW zzz stayed with us for the afternoo to keep the building closed. The employer was not pleased." The OPSEU locals in Sarnia had regular Friday activities because Friday was constituency day for the MPPS. "We had demonstrations at the MPPS' offices, David Boushy in Sarnia and Marcel Beaubien in Lambton," recalled picket captain Steve Nield. "We mobilized the picket lines to go to those offices. We brought drinks and chile." In the Queen's Park area, the demonstrations were often spontaneous, occurring two or three times a week. "They were usually started by the guys from the mail room," said Gary Shaul. "We would walk around and pick up strikers from the picket lines in the area. Before we knew it, there would be a few hundred people on the demonstration." There were three large rallies in downtown Toronto during the second week of the strike. On Wednesday the teachers' unions showed up at the Ministry of Education head office; on Thursday, artists, actors, performer, and writers appeared at a rally at the Ministry of Culture's head office; and on Friday there was an International Women's Day rally at the Ontario Women's Directorate. The three rallies were organized by Barbara Linds, a staff organizer, and they all tied in with the wider opposition. Support demonstrations were organized by the labour councils, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Nurses' Association, and the social justice coalitions. Every opposition group wanted to be part of the OPSEU strike, and on 18 March, the opening day of the spring session of the Ontario parliament, thousands came to the rally organized by the Metro Network for Social Justice and the Metro Toronto Labour Council - the rally held on the south lawn of Queen's Park, where the crowds listened to the music of the Rank and File Band and the speeches of Leah Casselman and Linda Torney while the OPP riot squad used pepper spray and bully clubs against strikers across the street. UNION MEDIA

Media is an integral part of culture. Even in quiet times, OPSEU activists like to write newsletters. During the five-week strike, the strikers and staff produced an enormous amount of newsletters. In addition to

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Picket Lines, which the head office at OPSEU issued daily (except Sunday), there were newsletters produced by many OPSEU locals, SACGS, and Toronto clusters. All were upbeat, disrespectful of the government, loyal to the strike, full of picket line advice and homilies, contemptuous of the scabs, and appreciative of other unions and supporters. Katie FitzRandolph, a communications officer with OPSEU, spent years developing a newsletter culture in the union, and it paid off: "Communication was vital and there was incredible communications on the picket lines. Between cellphones, faxes, and newsletters, most picketers knew what was going on all the time. Everybody felt part of the larger picture. It was a testament to the skills that we had developed over the years." Work on the newsletters - production, editing, writing, copying, or distributing - was considered strike duty. Smokey Anwyll, an Executive Board member from London, talked about the way the strike had transformed OPSEU members: "People became part of the union. I asked two women to produce a newsletter. We need it at 5 AM, I tol them - they'd have to work through the night. And they did." Judith Marion, an editor of the Daily Striker in St Catharines, said that they "pulled that newsletter together every evening" and went to the Fonthill OPSEU office in the morning to photocopy: "It was very important. Other people would come to our line to get a copy." Brian Mayes, staff negotiator, was particularly pleased about the speed with which news was spread of OPSEU'S Labour Board victory on the meat inspectors: "After we won, OPSEU head office produced an issue of Picket Lines with the headline 'Dead Meat: OPSEU Wins at OLRB.' It was out on all the picket lines the next day. People at the Ministry of Environment and Energy line on St Clair and Avenue Road congratulated me. It was helpful for me to go out on the lines." The newsletters give a good taste of the strike. A complete collection of any of them is, of itself, a history of the strike. What follows is a brief and selected chronological tour through some of the many newsletters. The Daily Striker Published by local 2.70, Ministry of Transportation, St Catharines, editors Judith Marion and Dan McKnight. The edition of 28 February asked other unions to support the picket line on "Walk Out Wednesday": "We are asking the building trades and delivery unions to respect our picket lines. We will shut down MTO'S building. The scabs then have to go out" ... "Employees at the St Catharines Hydro Commission have collected money in order to set up a coffee fund for our pick-

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eters." The headline of 29 February was "PEGO and AMAPCEO Show Support." On i March under the headline "Talk to Us First," the newsletter advised picketers: "If you are concerned about your finances during this strike, the members of our hardship committee would like to help." Another article warned: "Scabs have been phoning our members encouraging them to cross the picket line. Misery loves company." There was an illustration of a picket sign on the second page: "Simon Says ... Go on Strike!" The issue of 5 March announced a car pool to take strikers to the picket line, and a babysitting service. On n March the headline was "Back to the Table," and there was a column headed "Scabs Sent Home," which read: "With the assistance of fellow OPSEU members, our lines were just too big to cross. The scabs called the police and asked their assistance to cross our lines. The police are not an escort service. Instead, the scabs were asked to go back home." On 12 March there was more encouraging news about scabs: "Yesterday, our morning shift joined fellow strikers at the Court House. Due to the extra large lines, scabs had a very difficult time crossing. Only one made it across." The newsletter of 18 March talked about the planned demonstration at Queen's Park for the opening of the legislature: "Our local is sending about ten strikers to join in a large rally to be held at noon." Two days later there was a feature about overpaid managers: "Many of our managers (paid $80,000 a year or more) are answering telephones at MTO Info. They should pay us the same when we return." Striking News Published by locals 527 and 568 for the Downtown Toronto cluster, this was an information sheet on bargaining and other strike issues. The 8 March issue was a denunciation of scabs: "Any OPSEU member who crosses the picket line tells the Harris government that OPSEU members are losing their nerve and that the union is breaking. Being without a paycheque during the strike will seem like a minor inconvenience, compared to the realization that soon your salary will be gone forever." The second page had an announcement of a rally at Queen's Park for that day, 8 March. In the fifth week of the strike there was an explanation of the tentative agreement, together with a box in the bottom right-hand corner of the page which contained this "food for thought": "If the contract negotiations were held outdoors, in the same weather as we've been picketing in, the strike probably would have ended much sooner. Those Management Board types couldn't take it!" There was also a special

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issue on benefits, focusing on maternity and parental leave, but including a reminder that OPSEU was paying the premiums on the regular benefit program for drug, death, and hospital care for striking members. On the Line This newsletter was produced by the SACG in Sudbury, and it tells us in the 3 March issue that representatives from all thirteen Sudbury locals met every afternoon. The issue of 5 March had an article by the Sudbury staff representative Peter Slee, saying that fewer than i per cent of the members in Sudbury were scabbing. There was also a report of a rally at the Mine Mill hall, at which John Filo, OPSEU member from Cambrian College, had pledged support on behalf of the Sudbury Labour Council. The 6 March issue included a summary of OPSEU'S job-security and pension demands in bargaining; also an announcement of a babysitting registry. The issue of 7 March carried a report of a meeting between Sudbury staff representative Don Mallette and the Sudbury CUPE council, who would be walking the picket lines every Thursday; there was also a story on Karen Laws, the MNR biologist who was charged with mischief for detaining a scab for an hour and a half. The 8 March issue announced a bus trip to support strikers in nearby Espinola. Later issues carried stories on an equally wide range of issues: support from Shelley Martel, the Sudbury NDP MPP who marched on a picket line; a march against the Harris cuts with Gord Wilson, president of the OFL; a meeting with Sudbury police, who had been escorting scabs across the picket line; details of the deal with AMAPCEO; a description of the hardship relief fund; a $2,000 donation from the Sudbury Firefighters Association; the pulling of essential service workers at Sudbury Jail because management wouldn't investigate a health and safety work refusal; a strike fund update from Sudbury resident Bill Kuehnbaum, OPSEU treasurer; a visit to the picket line by NDP MPP Howard Hampton; an account of picketing the homes of scabs; details of the ratification vote for the negotiated settlement; and a 30 March solidarity celebration sponsored by the Sudbury Labour Council. OPSEU Queen's Park Cluster: Information Sheet This was produced daily by a group of information officers who called themselves the Kiel Line. The issue of 13 March had stories on "scab alley," the three job-security moves made by the government in nego-

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tiations, an invitation to "visit" Tory MPP constituency offices, an ONAsponsored rally at Queen's Park, and an announcement of the next OFL day of action in Kitchener-Waterloo. On 14 March there were stories on the support given by the United Steelworkers' soup trucks and the Canadian Auto Workers' Rank and File Band, both of which were touring Queen's Park picket lines, and on Dave Johnson's nasty habit of negotiating in the media. On 15 March there was an article on financial matters: Rogers Cable, Bell Canada, Ontario Hydro, and Consumers Gas had agreed to defer payments for OPSEU strikers. There was also a piece on the government's scab numbers, which were wild exaggerations, and an announcement of the 18 March rally for the opening of the legislature. The following day's information sheet described the OPP violence at th rally: "We will win this, but we will win it peacefully." There was also an article on the picket line protocols at Queen's Park, with fifteenminute delays but no delays for MPPS and staff at two specified doors. The remaining editions included stories on the $ i million loan from the United Food and Commercial Workers, information on free chiropractic treatment from the Toronto Wellness Centre, a description of the AMAPCEO deal, the march to Runciman's office to protest OPP violence, a reminder to "spruce up" the picket signs, a suggestion to call Metro Tenants' Legal Service about rent problems, two birth announcements, a piece on how Queen's Park property management was trying to break the fifteen-minute delay in the protocol, the deal at the central table, and the victory concert for strikers on 30 March. Picket Line North This newsletter was produced by locals in North Bay. Its first issue featured an article on what to wear on the picket line, especially in cold weather. There was a piece on Dave Johnson's denials about plans to hire replacement workers and a list of local businesses that were supporting the strike with donations. This list grew and appeared in a number of later issues. The newsletter of 28 February had pieces on strike pay, on how to treat scabs on the picket line, and a babysitting service, and it carried an announcement of a Solidarity Dance on 8 March. "Mike Alert" was the headline on 29 February, announcing the return of the premier to North Bay and calling for pickets. This was followed next day by the headline "The Vulture Has Landed" and a piece describing Harris's return to North Bay, where he was greeted at his constituency office by fifty pickets. There was also a reminder to refer picket line visitors to the picket line captain.

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The 6 March newsletter ran a piece on the "nobody in and nobody out" picket at the Ministry of Corrections head office, after management had let in four scabs from the psychiatric hospital. Later issues included pieces on picket line breakfasts and a strike-support barbecue, an analysis of the government's offer, a list of support from other unions and community groups, a list of businesses that refused to support the strike, a report on the media blackout on negotiations, a profile of Steve Giles, a piece on Dave Johnson's attempts to mislead strikers on negotiations, and a list of Internet Web pages to find out about the strike. One issue contained a striker's guide to videos, including Shaft (what your employer is trying to give you) and The Right Stuff (what those on the strike line are made of). On the Waterfront This was produced by local 73 6 in Thunder Bay. The first issue ran a notice saying that strikers would receive their last paycheque on 7 March, and there was a reminder to greet visitors to the picket line and to watch out for scabs. The second issue informed strikers that strike pay periods were Thursday to the following Wednesday and that scabs did not have a collective agreement while OPSEU was on strike. It also told of a lone picketer in Vermilion Bay who had held off ten pieces of snow-removal equipment. The third issue carried information on where to get financial counselling and had an announcement for a labour rally on 9 March. The fourth issue gave information on day care for the March break. Future issues reported on support from other unions, OPSEU Appreciation Day at the Lakehead Labour Council, and a planned slowdown at the Thunder Bay land registry office. They also gave information on free dental care for strikers' children and on the taxexempt strike pay; they had pieces on a motorcade procession, a burning of Mike Harris in effigy, a victory party on 30 March at the Moose Hall, a hot dog barbecue on the picket line, a pyjama party on the picket line, a visit by the Thunder Bay flying squad, the Songsters, and the opening of a food bank and an Employee Assistance Program; and they described a visit by Ethel LaValley, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Federation of Labour and former OPSEU Executive Board member. PICKET LINE CULTURE

The picket lines also became a centre of creativity. There were certainly enough issues to provide material for a range of chants, poems, and songs, some of which are given below:

The Picket Line Community NEGOTIATIONS

Take us back to the table, Negotiate with this crowd, Give us respect and our pensions back, All we want is a new contract. Jobs are why we march today, Harris keep your severance pay. Show some pride and dignity, Give us job security. David Johnson he is rare, Tells us how the cupboard is bare, Spends your bucks on their campaign. We will march until we gain A contract that is fair and sane. PICKETING

Here we picket in the snow Everything's been put on hold. Don't want money, don't want a fight, All we want is, what is right. NEW STYLE LABOUR RELATIONS

Mike'11 give us a home, with Palladini cellphones And the Johnsons and the Tsubouchis play, Where seldom is heard, an encouraging word And the wage is eight dollars a day. PRIVATIZATION

I've been working for Mike Harris All the live long day. He just wants to keep our pension And send us all away. Can't you see your public service All will go astray Once he sells us down the river, Then you'll have to pay. Harris wants to privatize People better open their eyes. Services that once were free Now will carry a user fee.

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Hey there scab, you can't hide You should be right by our side. Hey there scab, don't forget What we gain you also get FIFTY WAYS TO HUG YOUR PICKET

Join the line, Stein Buy some tea, Lee Call the MPP, Dee Share some coffee, Lofty Help the food bank, Hank Add a verse, Perce Write the press, Tess Bake a cake, Jake Stew some chili, Willy.

The strike even inspired a play, which was written by Richard Adams and appeared in Hubris, the newsletter produced by local 550 at the Central Ontario Regional Office (CORO) of the Ministry of Education. It began: Long, long ago, when society was being stratified in various and undesirable ways, a curious dynamic developed outside CASTLE CORO. Consequently, on one very early and very cold March morning, before the sun had broken the horizon, a few brave, though laughably small, group of IDEALICITES gathered at the gates of the Monarch's castle hoping to convert resident SCABICITES of the CASTLE to a new awareness. How might IDEALICITES be distinguished from SCABICITES, you may ask, for not so long ago it was thought that they all looked alike, perhaps even belonging to a common herd. Well, Sisters and Brothers, you should know that IDEALICITES clearly demonstrate how different they are from SCABICITES by their colourful uniforms, including visors, multiple scarves wrapped three times around the head, decorative badges attached to various parts of their bodies, huge gloves, funny hats, and large sheets of paper wrapped around torsos on which endearing messages of affection have been meticulously hand-printed. They also carry pieces of wood, to which afore-mentioned messages are attached. Whereas, SCABICITES, being without need, have no scarves, hats, gloves, carry novels or sundry very important government reports and have stooped shoulders and grim visages.

Act I. Hundreds of Years Ago Idealicite i (running forward and waving placard) No one is allowed to enter CASTLE CORO today.

Avanti! Who goes there?

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Idealicite 2 Tis I, thou firkin. I'm one of you ... don't you recognize my jerkin? Idealicite 3 (arrives panting) Sorry, brethren. I'm a little late 'cause my sturdy ass was frozen. Perchance, have there been any significant sightings? Idealicite i Oh yes, brother. But so fervent were our invocations that the errant IDEALICITE found redemption, rediscovered lapsed ideals and returned to the bosom of the family - she did not enter the castle. Idealicite 2 Zounds, here is yet another of our vanguard's common herd. Might we discourse on why we are standing here in-17 degree conditions, whilst four SCABICITES are enjoying warmth and vittles in yon hostelry? Pray tell, at the awful risk of generalizing, why we IDEALICITES are standing in this chariot and wagon parking lot and the SCABICITES, our erstwhile colleagues, are breaking their fast over yonder but are not inviting us to quaff a hot drink with them. Idealicite 3 In sooth, Sister, historic indicators suggest that SCABICITES want to be loved, desired, respected, needed, trusted and sometimes just whistled at. Whereas we IDEALICITES only want justice, peace, and hot apple cider. Idealicite 5 What's our herd's game plan for today, forsooth? Idealicite 6 Strategic planning is the name of the game - and, in sooth, we're good at it, having gone through so many worthless planning exercises when once we were valued official troops of CASTLE CORO. When the SCABICITES finish their breakfast, they will gird their loins and saunter from the hostelry over to CASTLE CORO because they have so many important tasks to accomplish. This is why they are arriving so much earlier than they used to. On sighting them, we will whistle in amazement at their commitment to putting in almost an eight-hour day. We will also capture their images on paper, so that we will never lose the ability to visualize how willingly they bond together, work together, eat donuts together, and whatever else they might do together. Idealicite 7 Next, we will dance around the SCABICITES as they gambol towards the portals of CASTLE CORO. In spiritus sanctus, we will link arms, stand in front of them, and confess that we would like them to become more like us. Starting with our 4 ft. 11 inch IDEALICITE who has the biggest heart, we will passionately implore that they durst not cross our picket line. Having individually protested how easy it would be for us all to become united, we will allow them to chant the mantra that they have been practising all week (What else do they have to do?) Finally, the Governor's Praetorian Gardener will come to escort them into CASTLE CORO, where they will sit in front of inert machines

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wondering how to colour their faces and comb their hair without looking in a mirror. STRIKE WELFARE

Being on strike caused hardship for thousands of picketers. Collecting a hundred dollars a week in strike pay hardly compensates for losing a regular paycheque. This was the greatest pressure on strikers, and it was the hope of the government that picket lines would collapse because of the economic pressure on many of the strikers. The central union, SACGS, and picket lines provided alternative forms of support, while social welfare infrastructures emerged on picket lines and strike locations to help the picketers who were in greatest need. Food Banks Strike leaders organized food banks for picketers who were most in need. The most extensive scheme was in Sudbury, where a food bank was developed with the tremendous support of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The moving force behind it was Karen Huhtula, an unclassified corrections officer at the Cecil Facer Youth Centre. She had been off work since 1995 because of an injury, but when the strike started she wanted to do whatever she could for the picket lines, though she had no previous union experience, and on the first Tuesday she and Lillian Ladue went to see Robin McArthur, the Canadian director of RWDSU. "I was concerned about our picket lines," she recalled. "Robin asked, 'What do you want?' I said, 'Hot dogs, hamburgers, whatever.' He said that he needed numbers. I didn't know what to say. I was concerned about the twenty-four-hour picket lines at MNR, MTO, Cecil Facer, the Sudbury Jail, and the ambulance and OPP dispatchers. Robin said, 'Whatever you need, you'll get.'" "They needed everything," recalled McArthur. "They didn't even have a strike headquarters." He contacted Peter Slee, an OPSEU staff representative in Sudbury. "We had just completed our union hall. We had a 65-^-75 foot basement. It was a central point in Sudbury. It had parking, phones, desks, and fridges. Within hours the OPSEU gang were here, and they were in business within twenty-four hours. Committees were up. Within a few days there was a rally at the Mine Mill hall." McArthur was a veteran of strikes. "We've had more strikes than all the other unions. I've been involved in forty-one strikes," he said. He and his union did far more than provide a hall: "We adopted all the single-parent strikers in Sudbury, seventy to seventy-five people. All the food warehouses in Sudbury were represented by our union. Karen and

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Lillian, dressed in RW hats, went in on a daily basis and asked for al the damaged goods. The warehousemen were generous. There were lots of damaged goods. We supplied between five and six tons. At the bakeries and dairies, we asked for a hundred quarts of milk and a hundred loaves of bread each day, and we distributed them to the needy strikers. Decals were put on all the cans so that they would know it was from the labour movement and not welfare. We raised between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars from our own members where we purchased meat. Food boxes were made up and delivered to people's homes. We had raffles." Peter Slee, who helped organize the distribution system in OPSEU, said, "Every buck we turned over to RW, they provided four dollar worth of groceries." RWDSU had established a voucher system with Poulton's Grocers. Huhtula helped coordinate it: "We gave out over $10,000 in food vouchers. The vouchers were given to the strikers in $25 and $50 denominations. Poulton's sold it to strikers at wholesale price. No profit was made. It was intended mostly for single parents." Huhtula added, "RW is my family and friends for life." Ruth Bergman described a food bank that was set up in Kenora: "Not only did we get the coffee and donuts but we also got financial support. We got food to create hampers for those who needed it. A food bank was set up with flour, soup, and bread. The communities tried to give vouchers, but we stayed away from that because of the stigma attached to it." In Elliot Lake, where there were thirty strikers, the local president Carol Hughes went to the food stores for donations: "We kept a food bank at the Steelworkers' Hall. Food was also donated by other unions. We got to a point where we didn't want to see donuts. On the last day of the strike we got eight dozen of them. We had so much food that we sent some to a local in Espinola. Foodland donated a hundred pounds of Italian sausages. We donated some of that to the Blind River people, but at the end of the strike we still had sausage left over." Carol Hughes found a good use for these sausages: "There was a little girl who had spina bifida and needed to go to Toronto, so right after the strike we had a barbecue in front of Foodland and raised $500 for her with the leftover sausages." Mike Colbourne of local 634, who was in charge of scrounging for the thirty picket lines in the North Bay area, had ten people on his scrounge committee. The food bank there started when a supplier gave him hot dogs: "I thought that if we can get this bulk stuff, why can't we have a milk day, a bread day? A&P gave us stuff... We got cases and cases of food, and we put it in a little room in the back of the SACG office. We filled that room. We had milk, bread, canned food, pastas,

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peanut butter, honey, baby food, diapers. We approached different places. We threatened boycotts with the big stores and then we got stuff. We had hot dog days. Every donut shop in the city donated donuts." Food came from an amazing variety of sources. In Cornwall, income maintenance officer Joan Clift said that Children's Aid Society workers ran a food bank, a local bakery donated two hundred loaves, and a grocer adopted local 404, Upper Canada Village. "As well," said Rod Pilgrim, "a retiree from Domtar gave $30 and said he'd give more at the end of the month, but that's all he could afford. A lot of people came round with hot soup, coffee. The steam fitters brought us sandwiches. The unionized Zellers workers brought us stuff. Vanelli's Pizza sent fifteen to twenty pizzas every Friday to the picket lines. The whole area seemed to consolidate around us." It was the same story at OPSEU'S Oshawa food bank. "Some picketers gave up their strike pay," recalled Sally Rudka. "Some women with husband autoworkers bought milk vouchers to hand out. Some managers gave money. We gave out food after the strike. People were delivering boxes of food to those in need." Then there was Gregg Sunstrum, an essential service worker in St Catharines, who had to go in to work but took it upon himself to feed the picketers: Every night I made chicken noodle soup: twenty chickens, twenty gallons of soup. Three hundred strikers got soup every day of the strike. On my lunch hours I visited all the lines at the four work locations in St Catharines and ladled out soup. I supplied the cups and the spoons. It went pretty fast, about an hour. I used a local restaurant to keep it warm. On the weekends I made soup for the picket line at the jail. The employer knew about it and didn't know what to say. I did it from the second day of the strike, February zyth, until March zyth.

Hardship Policy Another aspect of strike administration was caring for picketers in extraordinary need. Since giving up their regular pay for strike pay caused many members severe financial distress, the union established a hardship policy. Money for hardship was acquired from donations by other unions and from sympathizers in the community during the strike. The administration of hardship funds was decentralized; locals and SACGS administered the money, which was given or lent to strikers who thought that they might be going under financially.

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Members who wanted to borrow money from a hardship fund had to follow the procedure spelled out in the strike policy. To be eligible for financial assistance, one had to have been on the picket line or been engaged in some other strike duty. An income and expenses form had to be filled out, and alternative solutions had to have been tried, such as asking the landlord for a delay in paying rent. The local or SACG finance committee made the determination. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were lent to strikers during the strike. Hardship relief helped keep many people on the picket line. Will Presley remembers a woman in North Bay who tried to cross the line because of financial distress. "I said, 'You cannot and we'll help you out.' We put together a hardship fund. In North Bay we raised more than $10,000." There was also a fund in Elliot Lake, where Carol Hughes recalled helping five hardship cases. There were, of course, far more in Toronto. Lynda Roach-Ferguson was responsible for hardship relief there: Toronto got all the donations to the central union, about $150,000. There's no community in Toronto, so people had to turn to the union. A couple of members got time off the picket line to work on the hardship committee. They both had accounting backgrounds. We were approached by people who had to make a rent payment or faced possible foreclosure. Many were single parents. We tried to extend to as many people as possible. They had to tell us their financial problems. We told all the local presidents that if the local had used up all its money and wasn't able to help, they should send the person to us. The local president knew who was desperate. After three and a half weeks people started getting really nervous. We did make phone calls to verify if a member would be evicted or foreclosed, and we turned it around in a couple of cases.

In St Catharines, OPSEU raised about $11,000. "We got money from the teachers, Hydro, people in the building," recalled Dan McKnight. "The engineers in PEGO were great. We provided financial counselling as well as money. I got a few phone calls at midnight from members threatening to go in to work because they had run out of money. I always asked for a chance to help them, and they never went in." There was also help from Picket Lines, the OPSEU newsletter, which ran a story on "Surviving the Financial Crunch"; and union treasurer Bill Kuehnbaum wrote letters to all the banks: "People were afraid they would lose the car or the house. I called someone in a senior level at a bank and said, 'We have fifty thousand people on strike and you've got a guy in Barrie giving a striker a hard time. Do you want our people to know about it?' They then sent out letters to every branch. At the

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beginning of the strike I sent out letters to the big lenders. But in reality the fear in bankers' minds was not as big as the strikers." In Sault Ste Marie, some strikers dealt with their financial difficulties by using their member-owned credit union. "Anybody can go in and get a $2,000 loan from our provincial employees' credit union," explained Noreen Angus. "It's run by us, about 2.50 members. It's an offspring of the Civil Service Credit Union with its own chapter. We have a board of directors. It's open one hour a day, and has $3 million. About twenty-five members used this during the strike." At Millbrook Jail, Roy Lawder recalls, it was the chief psychologist who came to the rescue: "He organized fundraisers on the inside from managers, whoever, and raised $2,700 for hardship cases. He gave the money to me to give out. His only stipulation was that it should go to people who had children." Dan Williams, a corrections officer in Camp Dufferin near Barrie, had ten children, and his wife Peggy gave birth to an eleventh a week after the strike ended. As a local union steward, Dan had opted out of the essential services draw. Despite the hardship, both he and Peggy were totally committed to the strike. This was partly why he was interviewed on the radio: There was a story to be aired on CKVR in Barrie about a striker who had five kids who was going back to work because of finances. I was asked to be interviewed because I had ten kids. I agreed. The two interviews were aired back to back. I said in the interview that I didn't know how long we would be out, but I wouldn't consider going back to work and we would just trust in the Lord. This encouraged people on the picket line. After hearing me on CKVR, they took up a collection for my family. They presented it to me at the strike headquarters the next day. It was really moving. The only assistance we got was from the other picketers who were really short.

Added Peggy: "There were big bills and no money. But the commitment to the strike never wavered." FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

The strike put a great strain on family relations, mainly because of the loss of pay. But in some cases it brought families closer together. "There was huge family support," recalled Will Presley. "We did things to involve families. At the beginning and end of the strike, we had a strikers' ball. In the middle we had a family picnic, mainly for the young kids. That idea came from the picket lines. Actually, many people got to spend more time with their families with the four-hour pick-

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et. But the strike tested my relationship with my partner. I could never get away from the strike; every waking minute I was focused on it. Mona said I left her a couple of months before the strike and only came back after it was over." The strain was also too much for Steve Nield's marriage. Cheryl and Don Jordan in Woodstock had it a lot easier, because both were on strike and both had a history as OPSEU activists. Other members of the family were solidly behind them, including their daughter Patricia and Don's parents. His mother showed her support by bringing sandwiches to the picket line. For Wayne Campbell in North Bay things were the other way round, because he had to pay support payments to his ex-wife. "I had to pay per four-week period." The money was normally taken from his paycheque, but now there was no paycheque. Since the Family Support Plan was on strike, he had to pay the money directly and get a receipt. "I was put in the red. I moved in with my son. I couldn't borrow from OPSEU friends." Executive Board members, such as Norma Taylor of Smiths Falls, were kept so busy that they hardly saw their children during the strike. Some children joined their parents on the picket line. This was the case with Faye Pryor of Kingston, whose oldest kid came on the line carrying the picket signs." Pryor's seventy-year-old mother also came to the line. "My whole family supported us." SOCIAL LIFE

The picket lines became a centre of social life for the OPSEU strikers. "People suddenly knew each other and cared about each other," said Anne Caspar, who worked in a building that had different departments on six floors. "They were different people during the strike. They were kind and considerate and helped each other out. They worked together to make this thing work." Carol Piccini of local 502 at Queen's Park also liked the socializing: "I could go for breakfast at the Whitney picket line and lunch at the Hepburn Block picket line." Some picket lines kept up morale by laying on barbecues and other social events. Karan Prince's line in Renfrew "marched through the town as clowns, Tory clowns." There were also more organized forms of entertainment: "CUPE threw us a big party during the strike," recalled Ruth Bergman, and Karen Huhtula remembered the solidarity dance given by the Labour Council in Sudbury. At the Ministry of Health office in Kingston, "there was a disc jockey twice on the line," said Faye Pryor. "And on the last day we had balloons on the line. We opened the lines, turned our backs on the scabs, and sang 'Solidarity Forever.' We let them walk right in, and then we parried."

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Executive Board member Barry Weisleder organized a support concert for strikers at the Music Hall in Toronto's east end for the evening of 30 March: "By the second week of the strike we were dealing with demoralization. I got in touch with people in the arts community. We wanted to boost sagging spirits. About a thousand strikers came out. Most of the artists were prepared to donate, but each got a hundred dollars. We produced a tape. It was a wonderful evening." This concert turned out to be a victory celebration, because the strike had been settled the previous day.

C H A P T E R 10

The Wider Community

Decima Research, in a poll taken for Global News, found that 38 per cent of the respondents believed the union was "being the most reasonable and fair-minded" in the dispute, compared with 3 6 per cent for the government. Globe and Mail, i March 1996 Most Ontarians say the OPSEU strike hasn't affected them at all and the majority of informed citizens support the government's position, a poll shows. Toronto Sun, quoting the same poll, i March 1996

The public reaction to the strike was predictable. Members of other unions and opposition groups supported it, often with tangible acts of kindness. Owners of slaughterhouses and self-made millionaires were a lot more critical. As the above quotations indicate, the same "objective" information can be interpreted according to one's vantage point and bias. The wider community is really many communities: welfare recipients, bankers, students from wealthy families, students with huge debts, artists, neighbourhoods, professionals with good jobs, parents, prisoners, gays, lesbians, unionized blue-collar workers, unemployed blue-collar workers, psychiatric patients, professionals, men, visible minorities, small-business owners, homeowners, disabled people, women, tenants, seniors, single people, and a number of ethnic and national groups. One's community influences one's opinions. So does one's economic station. Ownership, tenancy, and employment define people's station, their class position. Some people own buildings while others rent. Some manage things while others follow orders. Some people get high salaries while others are poorly paid. Some people own too

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much, and some own nothing. The distribution of wealth and power in Canada is very uneven. Consequently, the Canadian landscape is composed of deep class differences. The Common Sense Revolutionaries want to make things even more uneven. They take from those who have little (the 21.6 per cent cut in welfare) and give to those with more (the 30 per cent tax cut). They are Robin Hood in reverse. The OPSEU strike was the first provincewide, organized resistance to them. It was the lightning rod that polarized community opinion for and against the Common Sense Revolution. The strike was part of something that was wider and deeper than a collective-bargaining dispute in the Ontario Public Service. It symbolized resistance to the Common Sense Revolution, and support for it was thus a tangible expression of opposition in the wider community. This support added a political and social dimension for strikers. I found in my interviews that where there was a stronger sense of community, there was stronger support for the strike. Support was cooler in the larger cities - Ottawa and certainly Toronto - where the community was more distant and fragmented. Work, neighbourhood, family, school, and friends are more detached from each other in large population centres. In smaller towns, where there is a more integrated community, support for the strikers was more personal. This chapter describes picket line connections with sympathizers to our strike. It is about the nonstrikers who came to the picket line and became part of the picket scene. This was an important element of the strike for many of the strikers whom I interviewed. PUBLIC OPINION

Claiming public support was a big part of the overall politics of the strike. Both sides of most political disputes claim to act on behalf of the public - on the "right side" of history - and the OPSEU strike was no exception. The difference between the two sides was apparent to anybody, yet both sides resorted to public relations techniques to get their points across. The government took two contradictory approaches. One approach suggested that the strike was inconsequential, that it affected nobody. Big deal if you had to wait to renew your driver's licence or had some trouble getting your birth certificate. The second approach suggested that spoiled civil servants had a lot of nerve upsetting government services on the roads and in the institutions. The government claimed to be defending taxpayers from greedy public-sector workers, their union, and the perils of fiscal irresponsi-

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bility. It argued that a higher wage bill for civil servants meant higher taxes and fewer public services. It also said that the job-security protection for civil servants was way out of step with the rest of the world, and that if it could free up some of these tax dollars, better jobs could be created for the rest of the community. This was yet another expression of the politics of resentment and division, the core values of the Common Sense Revolution. The government was applying its election strategy to its strike strategy, but in this case the strategy didn't work, because civil servants had roots in the community. Their picket lines were visited, fed, joined, noticed, photographed, filmed, interviewed, honked at, and supported, and were the focus of attention by the media. For five weeks OPSEU picket lines were the news.1 By contrast, the government appeared to the public only through the media. The suite of rooms in the Mowat Block where it ran its side of the strike was aptly called the Bunker. Its spokespeople issued press releases, called press conferences, gave interviews, and leaked stories to try and demoralize strikers. But they did not rub shoulders with the public the way we did. We were on the street. OPSEU'S PUBLIC PRESENCE

Some 30,000 OPSEU members, staff, and leaders were out on the streets among the wider comunity during the strike. Thousands of picket lines were set up in front of government buildings, institutions, provincial parks, jails, water-treatment plants, and probation offices, approachable and accessible to everybody. OPSEU president Leah Casselman talked to the press countless times out there on the street in front of the pickets. Anybody could walk up to an OPSEU picket line and speak their mind, and they did."We had about two thousand picket lines," recalled Pam Doig, who worked in OPSEU'S central strike mobilization room and knew the logistics of the strike. "Some of them had only one picket - in Red Lake, in Pickle Lake - for instance." Len Hupet, an Executive Board member for northwestern Ontario, said he had visited a picket line where strikers had built an igloo. We viewed ourselves as opponents of a "bully" government and as taking our stand partly for the wider community. Thus, every sign of support was received with enthusiasm - every honk of the horn, every donut, every donation, every rally, every pizza, every cup of coffee, and every favourable newspaper article. Community support added to the notion that this was a political strike. We noticed this especially after the OPP riot on 18 March. Will Presley said, "There was

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an empathy for what we were doing, if not a sympathy." The message of the picket lines was straightforward and direct: "We oppose Harris. Join us." THE MEDIA

During the five weeks of the strike, many of the picketers talked to the press. Both Karan Prince in Renfrew and Roy Lawder in Peterborough said that they had "great media coverage." In Ottawa, the press was not sympathetic. Dave Calvert, a supporter from the Children's Aid Society, put this down to the fact that "the press is very right wing in Ottawa." According to Will Presley, the press coverage in North Bay was balanced: "There was daily coverage in the local media, and they did a pretty good job. The Toronto media seemed less sympathetic. In North Bay the press people focused on local issues." Rejean Langois was less enthusiastic: "The media in Thunder Bay were rough on us the newspapers and the talk shows. They wouldn't print our letters. We went down to talk to them." Barbara Coombs, OPSEU vice-president for northwestern Ontario, was so annoyed by the coverage that she organized a boycott of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal: "We pulled subscriptions. The editor called us in for a discussion after the cancellations." On the other hand, many people spoke of media support. "The media was on side," said Norma Taylor. "The media was fair," said Mike Oliver. "I found it fair," said Steve Nield. "There was lots of positive coverage." SUPPORT FROM THE P U B L I C AND LOCAL B U S I N E S S E S

Visitors to the picket lines frequently showed their support with donations. Said Roy Lawder of Millbrook, "We had 80 per cent of community support, great media coverage, and we got donations of food, wood, and money." Steve Nield spoke of donations of coffee, soup, tuques, firewood, pizza, and about $6,000. Pizza, donuts, coffee, and soup were perhaps the most common things given by the public, but as Ruth Bergman of Kenora pointed out, "Not only did we get the coffee and the donuts, but we also got financial support." There was also generous support from small businesses, particularly retailers. "Even Harris supporters saw it as a way of aiding local peo ple on the street," recalled Will Presley, who thought that they did it partly to get good publicity. Karan Prince said that in Renfrew, "90 per cent of the restaurants said that if you were wearing a "No Justice, No

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Peace" button, you would get a 10 per cent discount. In Windsor, said Anne Caspar, "the Penalty Box brought us food at a reduced rate." But the degree of support varied. Don Jordan, in Woodstock, noted that independent businesses gave more support than franchises. "When we requested stuff from businesses, some gave, some told us to get lost. A Tory lawyer told us we could use his copier. He knew a lot of the people on strike, and he felt bad that he had campaigned for Harris." In St Catharines, Dan McKnight said that they got donations in kind. "The restaurant across the street, Shipman's, made donations. We used their washrooms and hung out there." Rod Pilgrim, in Cornwall, also had a good word for the local businesses: "Two grocery stores were unionized. Maynard's indedependent grocers told us that nobody would go hungry." By contrast, Gary Shaw in Toronto said they had "very few donations from the wider community." In Elliot Lake, where J.Y. Truffles regularly brought the picketers a pot of soup, many businesses gave contributions when the strike ended. "We had a celebration party on 30 March," recalled Carol Hughes, "and gifts came from Reflections, Natural Foods, Alpine Flowers, Elliot Lake Record Shop, Sooter's, Kathy's Ceramics, Shoppers Drug Mart, Seymour's, Vikings Fish and Chips, and IDA. They were all donations for the party." RECIPIENTS OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Many of the people who received family benefits also supported the strikers. Anne Caspar of Windsor remembers some of the clients from the Vocational Rehabilitation Services as being particularly supportive. Nancy Pridham, who worked at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre in Toronto, said that her clients were often confused about what was going on. "They'd go outside and see the picket lines at the gate. We told them we are out here for you. We told them that we'd be coming back to work when we get a contract. They seemed to understand that." Some of them even walked the picket line with the strikers. So did other members of the public. Sandra Noad of London recalled that sometimes a family benefits worker had counselled a client on the line. A T W I S T AT

THISTLETOWN

A year before the strike, the NDP government had announced the closure of Thistletown Regional Centre, a renowned agency for emotionally disabled children. The announcement had caused OPSEU local 547 to forge an alliance with a parents' group called Friends and Family against the Closure of Thistletown (FFACT). Michael Stohr, the presi-

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dent of local 547, said that Thistletown was "the flagship for treatment of youth and adolescence with a wide range of problems - autism, the emotionally disturbed, sexual abuse." He described the patients as "hard to serve" kids. "They've looked everywhere else. It's one of the criteria for acceptance." The alliance with FFACT was natural, because of the local's appreciation of the value of Thistletown. "We were together right away," said Stohr. "The strategy was to embarrass the government with our protest actions, and we got a lot of publicity. The alliance worked like a gem." Unfortunately, the strike strained this relationship. FFACT elected a new leadership before the strike, and in statements to the press it described the strike as a self-serving action. Right after that, said Stohr, "we had a meeting": Some parents wanted an essential services agreement between them and the union. There was even a push inside the local to provide homecare. I don't support that because it cuts right to the heart of essential services. It would weaken the strike. We'd be splitting energies between maintaining an active line and making sure the line doesn't have any impact. We told the parents we were fighting for the services for the kids, but the parents were split. Some agreed with us, but others thought they were getting the shaft while we were pursuing our personal aims. It upset me. I was never on the line for my own interests. I was on the line because I wanted to provide the best services. I became a hardliner on essential services. You have to provide only minimal services, otherwise you end up working against yourself. The employer at central control at Queen's Park called every facility every day and asked, "How are things going?" You wanted them to be told that there's a disaster here: "The bastards won't let us clean up the sidewalks." I understood the nature of withholding the services, but many of my co-workers were namby-pamby about it. If I were writing about it, I would use Thistletown as an example to point out what the potential problems are and where the best solution might lie - like building a relationship with them. And in fact it didn't fall apart. But the strike did bring out the differences in the alliance because of the nature of the relationship - one group being clients and one being employees. SENIORS, THE CHURCH, AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Marie Thomson remembered a picket line in Windsor that was next to a seniors' complex: "Retired people came over to talk about how they had stood up earlier." Brian Lowry recalled a similar visit on a picket

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line. "An older couple dropped by with twenty dollars. They asked us to fight for them." On the whole, seniors were supportive, especially those who remembered the Depression of the 19305. Very few of the people I interviewed mentioned church involvement, though. Don Jordan said he had heard a few nasty words from his congregation in Woodstock: "One of my brothers in the church said that if he saw me on the picket line, he'd run me over. However, other people in church supported us and the strike. The minister gave us fifty dollars." Eileen Whitmore of the Rideau Regional Centre also spoke of church support: "The Anglican minister told us that if there were people in great need, we should send them to him." Other church people also came forward with offers of help. So did high school students. The students from Laurentian High School in Ottawa used to drop by the line, recalled Brian Lowry. "They gave us a card signed by all the students and donated $474." Similarly, Ifi Zafiriadis of local 503 in Toronto spoke warmly of the Jarvis Collegiate students who had "dropped off coffee and doughnuts every morning." Pat Shearer of Thunder Bay was another picketer who recalled the support given by students. OTHER U N I O N S

Gord Wilson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, believes that the OPSEU strike was a watershed for the union movement: "We could declare a victory. We had been able to hold the government off, and we had made people feel better about the labour movement. For private-sector unions, OPSEU had arrived at a higher plateau. It had joined the fold." The support given by the labour movement was huge. It came in the form of over $16 million in interest-free loan guarantees, picket line training and support, donations, financial advice, soup trucks, the twinning of other union locals with striking OPSEU locals, the organizing of rallies, and even music. The Labour Council in Toronto did a lot of publicity. Its Metro Community Services program gave both financial and personal advice, such as "what to wear on winter picket lines," and it established a labour-community solidarity committee. Many OPSEU members spoke of the support they had been given by members of other unions. "Two bus loads of teachers came to show solidarity with us," said Beth Frise, picket captain at the Ministry of Health in Toronto. They helped morale for the picket lines because they were teachers. They stood with us at the three entrances, about a hundred of them." Gary Shaul spoke of the Steelworkers who "showed

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up at the picket lines with their soup trucks" and of the Canadian Auto Workers, who sponsored the Rank and File Band that played at the picket lines: "It was a real morale booster. As well, ONA gave us a huge room in their building which we used as a strike headquarters." Ken Taylor spoke of a great many unions giving help. Outside Toronto, it was the same story, with members of other unions providing food, money, and various forms of support. In Peterborough, Roy Lawder spoke of the help given by CUPE, the Steelworkers, and Auto Workers. Will Presley said that support from the other unions was "quite breathtaking" in North Bay. "One day two guys came in from a union we'd never heard from and donated to our hardship fund. Our largest contribution was from a non-CLC union." Pat Shearer in Thunder Bay made a point of mentioning the teachers and firefighters; Barbara Coombs, also in Thunder bay, spoke of the groceries brought each Friday by the Catholic teachers; Ruth Bergman in Kenora told of a party given by CUPE; Carol Hughes in Elliot Lake told of office space donated by the Steelworkers; and George Taylor in Ottawa spoke of the support given by the taxi drivers. Almost everyone I interviewed had some story about the support given by other unions. THE TOWNS AND

CITIES

It was easier to build a strike and establish picket lines in towns that had a union background and a union identity. For instance, Sault Ste Marie, as Noreen Angus pointed out, was "a pro-labour community, a steelworker city." Marjorie Martin said the same about Hamilton, while Sally Rudka noted that Oshawa was "a GM town, a CAW tow so a strike was not that foreign." Harriet Conroy made a further point when speaking of Sudbury: "Sudbury is a mining, union, blue-collar town, so they were there for us. Industrial unions always sneered at the candy-assed white-collar unions, and they were delighted to see OPSEU members fight back. OPSEU had finally grown up." A major variable in public support was the size of the community. As was discussed at the beginning of this chapter, smaller towns have a sense of community that is missing in the big cities. Norma Taylor noticed this during the strike. As an Executive Board member, she did strike-support work in Ottawa and the neighbouring towns. "Scabbing is a bigger problem in cities," she said. "In the smaller communities you know everybody, so there was more of a support system in the small towns - food banks and so on - and the media was on side. In Ottawa you don't know your co-worker. In small towns everybody knows everybody." Lynda Roach-Ferguson made the same observa-

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tion: "In the communities people pull together. In Toronto they get lost in the shuffle." Barbara Coombs, who visited many places in northwestern Ontario during the strike, commented: "In Geraldton, Nipigon, Kenora, and all the small communities it was unbelievable. The community was so behind them. They picketed with them." Pat Shearer, who works in Thunder Bay but lives outside it, told a similar story: "In my small village of a hundred and fifty there was a small MTO detachment picket The people brought firewood, and the Women's Institute brought us homemade bread, cheese, sandwiches. The togetherness of the people was strong." Nancy Thompson, who works for the Ministry of Education and Training, made much the same point: "I was raised in a union town, Timmins. I was on strike when I was nineteen. I went to university in a union town, Sudbury. When it comes to strikes, people in union towns are not ambivalent. They understand workers' rights. People on strike are frequently their neighbours. Toronto is different. It's more impersonal. There is more ambiguity around supporting workers and why. That was apparent during our strike." Brian Lowry summed up the big-city reaction when speaking of Ottawa: "We got a hundred fingers a day."

CHAPTER 11

Essential Services: A Limited Strike

I negotiated Thistletown's essential service agreement - the most bizarre I ever did. Every negotiation before that I always argued that these services were important: you need more staff, more resources, and more coverage; and this is what you need for safety. Now, they put something on the table, something I'd not normally agree with, that I'd never think would be sufficient staffing, and we said, "It looks fine to us." My job was to get the number down as low as possible. Everybody involved in that negotiation completely switched hats. Michael Stohr, local 547, Toronto

Essential services agreements were important parts of the strike. Almost everybody I interviewed agreed that these services were indeed essential and that they were advantageous to the government. In a private-sector strike, the union advances its negotiating position by inflicting economic damage on the employer, but in a public-sector strike the union attempts to inflict political damage. Although I cover a lot of ground on essential and emergency services in other chapters, the subject is dealt with separately here because of the need to discuss its dilemmas and strategic value in more depth. There is a strong moral argument that nobody should get hurt or die as a result of a collective-bargaining dispute. Certain activities are offlimits in a strike, and OPSEU was party to essential services collective agreements that committed the union to provide labour for those activities during a strike. Emergency services had to be negotiated as well. Emergencies are unscheduled and unanticipated dangers from which the employer requires more labour (for example, a prison riot, a forest fire, a snowstorm). As described in chapter 5, before a strike or lock-

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out can occur, the government and the union must complete essential services negotiations as well as the necessary preparations that will assure the delivery of these services. The essential services were extensive. During the strike, more than 12,000 essential service workers went to work with the full knowledge and consent of the union. The levels varied by occupational bargaining unit. In the Corrections unit, about 34 per cent of their OPSEU workforce was considered essential. This compared with about 28 per cent in the Institutional and Health Care unit, about 11 per cent in Operations and Maintenance, and about 5 per cent in Office Administration and Administrative Services.1 Negotiating, providing, and administering essential services was a disagreeable experience for OPSEU, because these services weakened the strike. However, OPSEU accepted that the essential services were in fact essential. Any other opinion would have reduced the moral credibility of the strike. But the employer pushed the whole thing far beyond what the union had anticipated. The employer used essential services arguments and legislation as a way of expanding the scope of "work being done" during the strike in order to weaken the strike and the picket lines. "It's always a battle in terms of defining what essential services are," said Linda Torney. "The line gets pushed by management as far as they can push it. If they could push it so that every single public-sector worker was essential, they would do that. But I don't know where that line is. It comes down to public health and safety, certainly in the hospitals. There need to be some essential services." In many cases, there is very little disagreement about whether a service or job is essential. For instance, my job as a computer systems analyst would hardly qualify as essential; nobody's health or life was jeopardized by my being on strike. Likewise, there is wide agreement that ambulance services are essential. But in other trades and services there can be considerable ambiguity. In order to acquire the right to strike, OPSEU had to agree to the principle of essential services. But in the consultations on the reform of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA), OPSEU had pointed out how essential services limit the right to strike. Consequently, in this version of CECBA there was language that addressed that point. Section 42. read: "A party to an essential services agreement may apply to the OLRB for a determination as to whether meaningful collective bargaining has been prevented because of the agreement." In October 1995 the government as rulemaker changed the rules to its advantage as employer. Bill 7 not only relegalized strikebreaking but

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it rewrote the rules around essential services, allowing employers to use scabs and replacement labour in a strike or lockout. This, of course, changed the labour requirements of a government seeking essential services labour. On top of that, the government changed the provisions of section 42,; this weakened appeals on the grounds that essential services were preventing meaningful collective bargaining. And just to clear up any possible ambiguity, Bill 7 also legislated the provision that the employer could use any "person to perform any work during a strike or lock-out." JUST WHO IS ESSENTIAL?

When negotiating an essential services agreement, one first has to define which services and jobs are essential. Is the regular care and treatment given to prisoners an essential service? What about the care and treatment of psychiatric patients? Is the availability of meat an essential service? How about the regular maintenance of highways during snowstorms? All these became heated issues during the strike. Prisoner-rights advocates and psychiatric-patient advocates spoke out against the reduced levels of care in the prisons and psychiatric hospitals.2 Another problem was where to draw the line between the needs of collective bargaining and the provision of essential services. If a union cannot pull off an effective strike because of a high level of essentiality, the principle of collective bargaining is compromised; but if no services are declared essential, the public may suffer harm. Many public-sector workers, especially those in direct-care services, felt uneasy about withdrawing their labour during the strike. Norma Wrightly, who was a picket captain at the Rideau Regional Centre, a residential institution for the developmentally handicapped in Smiths Falls, expressed the feelings of many when she said, "We had a moral obligation to the residents. On the other hand, essential services prolonged the strike." Joan Gates in Whitby could not desert her patients either: "I'm a nurse. I've got a licence. I care for people. That's the business I'm in. I couldn't leave people at the workplace where there wasn't someone to accommodate them." Bente Miller, a policy analyst for the Ministry of Health in Kingston, said, "It is a dichotomy. As unionists, solidarity is everything. But as a human being, you have to care about the welfare of other people." Darryl Taylor, an ambulance officer in Timmins, made much the same point: "On the one hand I'm committed to providing emergency services, but on other hand I'm a committed trade unionist. I leaned towards the collective-bargaining aspect." Karan Prince, an

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ambulance dispatcher in Renfrew who did go on strike, said that if ambulance services had been withdrawn, "they would have crossed the line." Despite many such examples of commitment and caring, the government accused OPSEU of lack of concern. Al Palladini, the minister of transportation, went so far as to accuse OPSEU of "declaring war on the people of Ontario."3 Yet his government itself had in fact weakened essential services. Before the strike, it had been criticized by three chief justices for its cutbacks to the court system (the "administration of justice" being clearly defined as an essential service in CECBA), and in October 1995 ^ had cut spending on winter maintenance of highways by 5 per cent.4 Moreover, many of the facilities that were once considered essential, such as residential treatment centres, have now been closed. "The employer has resolved that issue for us," says Gavin Anderson, a family counsellor in Kingston. "The government doesn't consider them essential, as it has pushed the services into the community." There is agreement that hospital workers are essential. They are prohibited from striking in Ontario by the terms of the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act (HLDAA), which outlaws strikes and lockouts in hospitals. But the Ministry of Health ran the ten provincial psychiatric hospitals as well as other residential institutions, and it argued that HLDAA should apply in these settings too. Mary Sue Smith, an OPSEU activist who works at Ottawa General Hospital as a medical technologist, was critical of the collective-bargaining restrictions in HLDAA. She held that the total prohibition of the right to strike in hospitals was not warranted. "Why can't housekeepers and other nonemergency-care workers go on strike?" she asked. "The government took the easy way out and legislated the whole thing. They avoided the argument of who could and who couldn't." At the same time, Smith expressed a view that I heard over and over again from front-line health-service and social-service providers: "You believe that if a person's life is in danger, the service should be there." ESSENTIAL SERVICES NEGOTIATIONS

The government and OPSEU negotiated the essential services between September 1994 and December 1995. The negotiations had to define the service, the jobs, and the numbers necessary to provide that service adequately to fulfil the requirements of the legislation. Deadlocks were resolved by arbitration. The Institutional and Health Care (me) bargaining unit was the focus of intense negotiations. It was "composed

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of approximately 11,500 workers employed as nurses, psychiatric nursing assistants, developmental service workers, social workers, pharmacists, physiotherapists, ambulance officers and dispatchers, cooks and food service helpers, laundry workers, and OPP dispatchers. They worked largely (though not exclusively) in facilities for the developmentally handicapped, psychiatric hospitals, correctional facilities, and ambulance services."5 Diane Bull, the OPSEU staff negotiator for IHC, described the process: We agreed to bargain facility by facility. We did the facilities first. They have good labour relations. We started out with laundry and dietary services. The first big problem we ran into was management's proposal to contract out the work during the strike. They said everybody could then go on strike. This was unacceptable to us, because it would continue to be privatized after the strike; it wouldn't come back. We were the first group to apply for mediation in November [1994] to move it along. Institutions were foot-dragging. There was probably a central strategy to foot-drag. John Mather was the mediator, and he was effective. We then started to bargain - 10 o'clock, n o'clock at night for two weeks - and we got some deals at the facilities ... We also had to deal with the question whether we were going to bargain by position or by function: Is the "nurse" essential or is "giving a needle" essential? We wanted function, because that would be more limiting. Much of the work that's done during the day by nurses isn't essential. Manitoba had done it by function. But we lost that point. We then strove to make the number of nurses so low that they could only do those functions that were essential. At the start of the bargaining, we had decided that the highest we'd go for would be the "weekend level" of staffing, but we didn't get that high. When we were negotiating a facility, we'd bring in the local president. Sometimes they [the management] brought in half a dozen people. We agreed at the beginning that the essential service staff would be laundry, kitchen, and direct-care staff, developmental service worker, and psychiatric nursing assistants. PNAS have three levels. The management bargaining team wanted the PNA 3 (the highest level) to be the essential service worker; they said they are a "better class of worker." We decided then that we'd never give them a PNA 3; they tend to be management wannabes. PNA zs would be more militant. We did it by ward, by number, and by the type of clients in a ward. Diane Bull said that doing the essential services bargaining was treading a fine political line: "Essential service is an artificial construct. You don't want to piss off the population as a whole. But there's very little that's essential. In the ambulance service there are codes i, 2, and

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3. A code is a level of how critical the service is. Code 3 is basically a transfer, a glorified taxi service. We had an agreement that there would be no code 35 during the strike. This became a bone of contention, because the dispatchers had the authority to classify the service, based on a set of questions, and they were being overridden by supervisors." CORRECTIONS

The prisons were the flashpoint of essential services. All the ingredients were there. "Prior to the strike, management was telling the inmates it would be business as usual, that they'd get their day room and sports periods," said Tim Hannah, a corrections officer at Millbrook. But it became evident during the strike that this wasn't possible. "It was a provocation to the inmates. When they found it wasn't business as usual, there was backlash by the inmates against the staff." Jim Albrecht, a corrections officer from Guelph, said, "People worked hard to make the place run as if it were normal. But management tried to make the guards look like the bad guys, as if the guards were causing the disruptions." According to many strikers, there were too few guards in the jails during the strike. There were riots, floods, and fires in many facilities, and there was a great deal of sympathy for the workers on the inside, who were in a very dangerous situation. Roy Lawder and others in Peterborough "did health and safety work refusals." There was not sufficient staff for the numbers and program, he explained. Even after the Herman decision (that one-third of the prisoners get one-third of regular out-of-cell time), "we did a work refusal. There were still too few people in there, and they were trying to operate normally. But everything was still working." On occasion, guards left the picket line to provide emergency services when trouble broke out in a prison. "At Millbrook we had a riot on the third day," recalled Tim Hannah. It was when the inmates realized that management's promises weren't happening. We sent our picket line into the institution to quell the riot, to protect our members who were in there." Cindy Haynes, who worked at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London, said that they helped out when more staff were needed at Bluewater Centre for Young Offenders: "We always told management that if there was an emergency, we had no problem sending in people. Two of our vans went to Bluewater."6 Other strikers thought that there were too many guards in the jails during the strike. They believed that the essential services kept the

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strike going longer, and some even felt that there shouldn't have been any essential service workers. Jim Albrecht said, "The fewer the people, the less effective the workplace. That adds pressure on the employer to solve the problem. There were too many people in the workplace, and the people who were there worked too hard to make the place run." There is a long history of bad labour relations in the Correctional Services ministry. There was an illegal strike in 1979, and a walkout in 1989 over pensions. Management uses a quasi-military labour relations style, and both sides have a habit of prodding each other. In the fifth week of the strike alone, the government filed twenty-one illegal strike applications at the Labour Board. "They were cutting corners and breaking their own rules," said Derek Miller, a guard at Metro East Detention Centre in Toronto and an Executive Board member. "The Corrections Ministry never lives up to agreements. They did not live up to essential services agreements. They threw out the standing orders, and health and safety went out the window." The spectre of "illegal strike" hung over Corrections for much of the strike. OPSEU'S communications director, Frank Rooney, thought it was government strategy: "It was tied to their injunction strategy: Make the strike illegal; get the defiance of the injunction that would make the strike appear illegal. They based their strike strategy on Corrections. We had a meeting with the guards on the first Sunday telling them to cool it, and that calmed it down. Some of our people feared the whole strike would be declared illegal. In reality, the implications were mostly in public relations. Their public relations strategy was based on their injunction and illegality strategy." Richard Larcher, a probation officer in Sudbury, agreed with Rooney: "Our employer was purposely trying to bait us - get us to react, and then get the government to legislate us back to work." Larry McGregor, the local president at Sudbury Jail, told me: "The Sudbury Jail was the first jail where the essential service deal was broken. The essential service workers were ready to come out on their own. It was hell in there. Some of the keys had been taken by management. Once the keys were gone, that's when we decided to pull them." When I asked McGregor if by doing so they ran the risk of putting OPSEU in an illegal strike situation, he replied, "We had a dilemma with that because we knew that a number of people were out for a number of good causes." Mike Culkeen called Corrections the backbone of the strike: "If you need something on the picket line, the guards would be there." To make things easier for the guards, the union had a rotation system in

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Corrections. The first shift went in for the first two weeks of the strike. After that, the second shift left the picket line and went in for the second two weeks, and it was replaced by a third shift in the fifth week. This system allowed most of the guards access to regular pay during the strike. THE SELECTION

After negotiating an essential services agreement for a work site, management and union representatives created an eligibility list. The essential service workers were chosen by a draw of names from this list. Local union officers had the right to remove themselves from the draw, and the vast majority did. But some did not, and this created problems where a local union leader was inside working. Nancy Pridham of Queen Street Mental Health Centre described how the draw was conducted there: "All the nurses had their names in a hat. The draw was done by ward. We ran at weekend staff level. Normally five people came in, but during the strike there were to be four. On the night shift, it went from three to two. And no breaks. The person not picked was backup. The union's local executive committee opted out. I was the first person picked. The picking was done by the union with the employer present. People wanted to be essential, because they wanted the paycheque." Doubtless, Pridham also could have done with the paycheque, but she chose to opt out and walk the picket line instead. There were various ways of conducting the draw. Martin Mitchell said that at the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital they were afraid to be identified with the selection process because of a possible backlash from other members of OPSEU. "So we were just observers. We just watched as the employer picked." Cindy Haynes said that at the ElginMiddlesex Detention Centre the "essential service workers were picked by a random draw to decide who would be on which shift." At North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, the names were put into a hat and drawn by Human Resources, said Sue Brown: "Each department and each ward had their own draw. It was a fair draw, but the numbers were too high. The essential service numbers were equal to weekend staff. We gave up too much." WHY ARE YOU LETTING THESE WORKERS IN?

"We had people like the Steelworkers come to our picket line, and they didn't understand why we were letting in essential service workers," said Joan Gates. In London, Cindy Haynes had similar problems:

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"Other unions and strikers from other ministries had difficulty understanding essential services. We had difficulty with the MTO line, who didn't have essential services workers. 'Why are you letting these people in?' they asked. But after the first week they understood. This was also a problem with other unions who joined our picket lines." Anne Caspar in Windsor was another person who spoke of having difficulty with supporters from other unions: "They couldn't understand essential services. It was better that they weren't there. We were constantly making concessions that they couldn't understand - letting in essential service workers." INSPECTIONS Each work site had an essential services representative from both the union and management, and their job was to inspect, investigate, and attempt to resolve differences. Any differences that could not be resolved were filed as complaints with the bargaining teams in Toronto. "The workplace reps didn't know what they were in for," recalled Cindy Haynes. "There were problems with staffing. There were times they weren't allowed in. They were allowed access only once every twenty-four hours. We were getting problems from the institution. Sometimes management would say they needed extra workers, and our rep would deny the request. Then they would hold our staff when a new shift was supposed to come in." Steve Nield, a Sarnia work site representative, achieved a good deal of success with his inspections: Some essential service workers brought coffee out to the picket line and reported back to us about essential service workers doing nonessential work. When we found out, we filed complaints. We sent in a pile of them. There were some successful responses. We then escalated the inspection visits. I went in every day with the designated person. One ministry raised an objection about our visits. The protocol was to call the employer first. We never did that. We went in and talked to our essential service members and made sure they weren't doing additional work. We told them to work at a minimal pace. At first we walked into the place like we owned it. We were challenged twice the second week. They asked for notice, and one manager called the police, but we asserted our right to be there. Sandra Noad, in London, had a more difficult time with a nursing home: "There were three designated essential service workers, but all eight went in. We got kicked out when we wanted to do the work-site inspection. We put in a complaint, but nothing happened."

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WITHDRAWING ESSENTIAL SERVICE WORKERS

Before the strike began, OPSEU threatened to withdraw essential service workers if the employer broke the agreement.7 During the strike there was pressure from the corrections officers to do just that, but there was no pressure from the office workers, where essential services were not an issue. Pulling the essential service workers would have meant risking an illegal strike. Recalling the correction officers' threat to pull out, Leah Casselman observed: "I think there were some mistakes made when we started talking with the members. What would trigger pulling the essential services? Clearly, if they brought in replacement workers as opposed to their own employees. But we never made that differentiation. And then we had to start qualifying." Larry McGregor from Sudbury had taken Casselman literally: "We were prepared. I asked Leah at a prestrike meeting if she would pull the essential service workers if management breached the agreement. She said that she'd be willing to go to jail." But there were many like Darryl Taylor who thought that withdrawing essential service workers would have been a mistake: "If we'd pulled all the essential service workers, we would have lost public support." There is no doubt that essential services put OPSEU in a dilemma. Workers on the inside were in a precarious situation, particularly in Corrections, where those who went in were at risk and were overworked. On the other hand, essential services weakened the strike effort, prolonging the strike and demoralizing the picketers. "The agreement was to the advantage of the employer," concluded Steve Lauzon. Joan Gates was of the same opinion: "It allowed management to toy with us. They could cause trouble on the picket line. They called emergency service people out of order. If an essential service worker called in sick, they called a person who wasn't supposed to be called, to create disorder. It was deliberate. Then the line would go crazy: That person wasn't supposed to go' ... 'It was my turn to go in, my turn to make some money.' It was a matter of making money. It caused resentment." Dominic Bragaglia summed up the whole thing well: "The Herman award was too complicated. The essential service workers were at risk. The security was lax. Corners were being cut. There was an ambivalent relationship between essential service workers and the picket line. People didn't like crossing the line. People felt very strange. They didn't want to be on the inside. Rotation didn't help. You're in and then you're out. I didn't feel good about that. I didn't feel good about any of it."

C H A P T E R 12

Legal Issues

The government is my employer. My paycheque comes from the Ontario government. We are unionized. We have a collec tive agreement. We were in bargaining and they can't abrogate their responsibility. Clearly, on 18 March we wanted to involve our employer in the dispute. Leah Casselman, president, OPSEU What do you do when the law itself becomes so devalued in terms of its credibility and impact because of the way it is made or the extremes to which it goes? You have to start wondering. It certainly means that the right to protest in that situation becomes more emphasized when you have a government that isn't allowing much public participation in its processes. Judith McCormack, former chair, Ontario Labour Relations Board

Laws provide legitimacy to the behaviour of people, organizations, and governments. In this century, our laws have become accountable to a higher set of standards, and some of them have been declared unconstitutional or human rights violations. The supremacy of Parliament is not what it used to be. People want to be on the side of the law. It's easier, more comfortable. It seems right. Civil servants, in particular, want to be on the side of the law. We work directly for the government and are surrounded by the law. We are even subject to specific legislation, the Public Service Act, which governs our behaviour with regard to confidentiality and loyalty, and which until early 1994 curtailed our partisan political activity. Many of us enforce and administer the law in commerce, employment standards, the environment, health and

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safety, in all kinds of inspection and regulatory activity - and thousands of us work directly for the justice and penal systems. So we don't need to be told about the significance of the law. The Ontario government enacts the laws of the province, including laws about collective bargaining and labour relations with its own employees. The earlier chapters described how, in the fall and winter of 1995, the Harris government changed the law to its own advantage. It stacked the deck against us, changing the law governing our pensions, the law on public-sector successor rights, the law on rights arbitration, and the laws on essential services and strikebreakers. But the Harris Tories were not only the government. They were also our employer. By being partisan, they had tainted the law. The purpose of the CECBA 1993 reform had been to level the collective-bargaining playing field with OPSEU, but with Bill 7 the field became even more slanted in the government's favour. The period of the strike was a very busy time for OPSEU and government lawyers. They were in court or at the Labour Board every day. During the five-week strike, there were more than a hundred legal disputes, most of them initiated by the government. There were eightytwo court actions, thirty-four involving correctional facilities, ten regarding other institutions, nine concerning courthouse picketing, twenty in other government facilities, and nine involving a third party such as the owner of a slaughterhouse or private office building. There were over thirty applications at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, mostly over alleged violations of the essential services agreements. Cowling Strathy Henderson was OPSEU'S law firm for strike-related legal matters, and Don Eady kept a descriptive log of all completed court cases and Labour Board hearings. The log contained commentary and documentation on ninety-four court and Labour Board cases, and even this wasn't the whole story. According to Don Eady, "In the last week there were twenty-one illegal strike applications from the Corrections ministry. The government had an injunction strategy. They wanted the institutions and Queen's Park to run business as usual." There was no record of these last-minute illegal strike applications because they were still pending when the strike was settled. Only five of the court and Labour Board charges were initiated by OPSEU. There were two charges of unlawful confinement during shift changes at the Toronto Jail and the Vanier Centre, an unfair labour practice charge over reprisals against prison guards who had refused unsafe work, a charge of denying access to a union work site representative, and a charge of overzealous use of snowplows. The other eighty-six legal actions (plus the twenty-one undocumented ones in the final week) were initiated by the government. They included injunction

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applications to limit picketing, as well as Labour Board applications to declare the strike illegal, to limit the effectiveness of picket lines, and to expand the use of essential service workers. The courts and the Labour Board had significant roles. They had the authority to listen to complaints and to rule with sanctions. On the surface, the disputes were about conflicting legitimacies, but they were really about jockeying for position in the strike. Although they were shaped by legal protocol and precedent, the politics of the strike were evident in every legal action. The legal disputes were connected directly to the battles around the picket lines. In the legal setting, the right to picket runs up against other rights. The government argued that the union's right to picket weakened the right of free movement for nonstrikers, the right for courthouses to remain demonstration free, and the property rights of a publicly funded transit commission. A fourth right, that of members of Parliament, caused the most controversy. Are they exempt from the ordeal of a picket line encounter? I asked Judith McCormack, of the law firm Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, about the government's attempt to limit OPSEU'S ability to picket during the strike. McCormack had been a vice-chair and later chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board for a total of nine years. "The limitations on the right to picket that the government wanted would have made it virtually meaningless," she said. "There would have been no impact on anyone, anytime, anywhere. Picket lines are designed to have a particular impact in a labour relations dispute, to restrict the activities of the employer. Picketing would have become a shadow of itself if it didn't have that impact." The union's objective was to maintain and, where possible, expand the right and the space to picket, and strikers inevitably "pushed the envelope."According to Don Eady, the job of a union lawyer during the strike was to ensure that members of the picket line would get a second or third chance: "We didn't want to see injunctions that would limit the number of pickets or ban picketing. We'd always pitch it to the judge that this was not concerted behaviour, that tensions had erupted because of a particular act the employer was doing. And that it was the employer saying that the union did this or that - wouldn't let in the milk truck or had been bashing trucks with picket signs. It's very difficult to get the judge to understand what a picket line means." Before the strike began, lawyers for OPSEU and the government had arranged for Justice George Adams, former chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, and Justice Warren Winkler to hear the cases. "We wanted to ensure that we were in front of a judge who understood labour relations and picket lines and strikes," explained Eady. "There

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was some planning in getting Adams and Winkler for most of the motions. Both were former management-side labour lawyers, but they knew what a picket line was. They knew when the employer was overreacting. They've got good bull-shit detectors. We had worked that out with the government. We went to the regional senior judge and asked if we could streamline with the possibility of hundreds of injunction applications. We told her we'd like Adams, with Winkler for the overflow." Ninety per cent of the cases were heard in Toronto. Eady described how this was arranged: "We approached Management Board lawyers to have everything heard in Toronto. People might have to be brought in, but it would be easier to manage, we said." The government's inhouse lawyers were happy with this arrangement. Eady suspects they were concerned about contracting-out to companies such as Hicks Morley; they feared they might lose control of the work and wanted it centralized. "Outside lawyers were chomping at the bit for this work. It's interesting and fun. Local managers were starting to freelance legal work." The government failed in its attempt to have the courts restrict picket line activity and expand the sphere of essential services. Its legal strategy did not work. By and large, OPSEU did well by the courts and the Labour Board. As the courts turned down government applications, they were legitimizing picketing and protest. The blessings of the courts allowed picketing members to feel more secure. Linda Torney thought that OPSEU did well at court because of internal labour relations: "The courts were benign. They were dealing with their own employees." Leah Casselman thought it had more to do with the nature of the Harris government: "The courts are pretty friendly to anybody taking on this government. It has a lot to do with the complete ignorance of this government with any public service, including the judiciary itself. The government thinks they're above everything, including the law." THREE LEGAL GAINS

According to Eady, OPSEU made gains in three legal areas: the right to delay on the picket line, the right to picket on third-party property, and the right to picket courthouses. The Right to Delay Before the OPSEU strike, delays were rarely if ever written into an injunction. During the strike, they became a regular feature of injunctions as well as protocols. Eady explained how this came about:

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Delay was in doubt before the strike. The state of the law in Ontario recognized the legality of picketing but not the right to delay people. In the court's conception, the picket line was for communication. We argued that the process of dissemination of information inherently involves delay - that when we ask people to read pamphlets, and when we talk to people about the strike, that takes time. The courts recognized this view. They also recognized that an orderly picket line was one where there were rules for delay. If you allow the employer to run its trucks and people through the picket line, then people will get hurt. The right to delay was a show of strength. Picketers had the legal authority to hold up that truck for ten minutes, now that judges had put delays into their orders. It's very rare. We couldn't find cases in Ontario where delays had been put into court orders. In the 19708 and 19805 you had some of the most rightwing judges deciding these cases. But Adams and Winkler understood strikes. They were mindful of the employer's property rights and were mindful of the union's right to picket.

Picketing on Third-Party Property Queen's Park is the most populated and visible site in the Ontario Public Service. It has ten buildings and about seven thousand employees. There are head offices for seven ministries as well as the Legislative Building itself. Every building is connected to every other building through a system of tunnels and passageways, and this system is connected to the Queen's Park subway station at one underground location. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) owned one side of the entrance to this connecting link and the Ontario government owned the other side. Both claimed property rights and disallowed picketing. On Sunday, 4 March, a few days after the strike began, OPSEU held a press conference with Howard Moscoe, the pro-labour Metro councillor who was vice-chair of the TTC. When we criticized the TTC fo taking sides in the public-sector strike, Moscoe claimed that the transit commission was succumbing to funding threats from the Harris government. He dubbed the tunnel Scab Alley, and the name stuck. On Tuesday OPSEU staged a demonstration at TTC headquarters, and on Wednesday we sent a deputation to a regular meeting of the sevenmember transit commission, requesting that they either shut down the tunnel or give OPSEU the right to picket. The TTC refused to do either As long as the tunnel was open and as long as it couldn't be picketed, the strike was weakened. The Harris government and the strikebreakers could snub their noses at us, since anybody could enter their largest workplace, the Queen's Park complex, without facing a picket line.

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On Monday, 11 March, at seven in the morning, about eighty OPSEU strikers and Steelworkers occupied the tunnel. As a result, nobody got through. On Tuesday morning, 12. March, OPSEU blocked the entranc from the TTC side with the help of teachers who were off for the Marc break. The three top officers of the Ontario Federation of Labour Gord Wilson, Ethel LaValley, and Ken Signoretti - joined the picket on this occasion. On Tuesday night OPSEU was in court, since both the TTC and th Ontario government had applied for injunctions to prohibit picketing on either side of the tunnel entrance. Union lawyers described the union's right to picket as a constitutional right to free speech, and the judge ruled that OPSEU had the right to picket. However, the injunction limited the number of picketers to eight, and no delay was permitted. The tunnel entrance is a small revolving door, and eight pickets were enough to put up a respectable line.1 The problem with subway entrances was not limited to Queen's Park. A number of government offices are housed in huge office buildings that are connected underground to the TTC subway. On Thursda morning about fifty OPSEU strikers put up a picket line inside the Dundas Street subway station entrance to the Atrium office building. We were evicted by building security and TTC police, and OPSEU was bac in court that night. The TTC lawyer argued that we had violated Tues day's injunction and that OPSEU should be denied picketing rights at all TTC locations. The court ruled that OPSEU had the right to picket at all subway stations, though we were only interested in the ten subway stations that were directly connected to office buildings containing Ontario government offices. Eady said they had been able to find no other case in which the union had the right to picket on third-party property. For their argument in court, they had used an airport case, "A fringe, right-wing political party was setting up a booth in the airport. They were on third-party property. It was public; that made a difference. I don't think there are any cases where a union won the right to picket on somebody else's property." Picketing Courthouses During a strike by the British Columbia Government Employees Union (BCGEU) against the Government of British Columbia in 1988, the courts ruled that courthouses could not be picketed. The BCGEU had put up pickets around courthouses and issued passes for people to get in. Chief Justice McEachern looked out of the window, saw the picket line, and on his own motion issued an injunction pro-

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hibiting picketing at any courthouse. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the injunction. Eady remembered how the same type of injunction was tried in Sudbury and Kitchener: "We argued the constitutional right to picket. The BCGEU case was a classic misunderstanding of a picket line by the judiciary. They talk about how access to justice must be free and clear; but why, in a free and democratic society, can you not picket outside a courthouse? Adams understands the importance of picketing and saw no reason to apply this in Ontario. Picketers couldn't obstruct, but they could hold up the picket signs. It's not a 'demonstration-free zone.' That's important." When discussing the subject, Judith McCormack recalled that provincial court judges in Ontario had considered various job actions in 1989: "Judges were talking about withdrawing their labour, not listening to cases. They were having a salary dispute. The fact that judges were talking about that suggests that courthouses aren't sacrosanct." McCormack believes that access to the courts is essential, though this does not preclude picketing. After all, the law does say that the "administration of the courts" is an essential service. It is interesting to speculate how the strike would have turned out if the courts had not been running. There would have been nobody around to interpret the rules, nobody to arbitrate disputes. "What if a union had gone into court to contest an injunction?" McCormack wondered. "That's the kind of test that keeps us honest. I'm not excited about the idea you can block access to the courts. There may be situations when unions want to bring an application to the courts. You have to look at it beyond the situation and the single interest of a particular party." MPPS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

The employer's powers as government were a major issue in the strike. Its "management rights" were extraordinary in that they would not allow collective bargaining to reverse legislation. As well, the so-called sovereignty of Parliament was used to slant the collective bargaining in the government's favour. After the Queen's Park OPP riot of 18 March, the government agreed to hold an independent inquiry to investigate the events, and this commission of inquiry was established on 17 April by an order of the Ontario cabinet. The commission was chaired by Willard Estey, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Hearings took place between 13 May and 18 June, 1996, and the report was released on 2,2. October. Judith McCormack was one of two OPSEU/OFL lawyers at the Estey Commission. The other lawyer was Michael Mitchell. "What we were

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trying to say at the inquiry," recalled McCormack, "is that there are two important rights involved: MPPS need to get into the legislature, and unions are entitled to picket and protest. The way to balance these two things is to come up with a system of protocols. A protocol is a balance. You shouldn't say one right trumps another right, especially when the other is as fundamental as the freedom of speech. You shouldn't say that one should absolutely prevail over the other." McCormack also pointed out that the government had a role in the strike. "The inquiry raised the problem of the government as a player. The government wore one hat as the employer and another hat as the legislature. Strikes occur in a context, not in isolation, and so did the events of that day. One element of that context was that the government took legislative steps that had a severe impact on OPSEU'S collective-bargaining rights. As a result, the government could not say that the legislature was neutral and was removed from the dispute. MPPS had already gotten their hands dirty by playing an active role as employers." The issue of neutrality also came up with the mediator, John Mather. "This bargaining was different from the mediator's point of view," he said. "I had a trillium on my paycheque. I was afraid that the union would see me as an extension of the employer. But I made it clear I wouldn't stand for any kind of interference." What was clear from the riot of 18 March as well as from the conclusions of the Estey Commission, was the chasm between OPSEU and the strikers on one side and the government and OPP on the other side. It was remarkable that the government believed it could expect a "business as usual" opening of the legislature in the fourth week of a strike by tens of thousands of civil servants - that it could believe this when there was no end of the strike in sight after three weeks of standing on picket lines, in freezing weather, for a hundred dollars a week. "By the end of the third week of the strike, bargaining was stalled," recalled Gavin Leeb, an OPSEU strike organizer in Toronto. "Something had to be done, or the government would win a war of attrition. We had to make a mark here. As far as parliamentary privilege is concerned, it's not a law that means a lot for people who have been on strike for three to four weeks. The members needed to make a statement that day." There is another way of posing the question of the balance between collective-bargaining rights and parliamentary rights. Was the Ontario government abusing its parliamentary rights to slant the collectivebargaining playing field in favour of itself against its own employees, against us? Is it right for one player in a collective-bargaining dispute, in any dispute, to have such an extraordinary advantage? Much has been said and written around the events of 18 March. Jus-

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tice Estey tagged OPSEU and its members with original sin: "The Commission wishes to state one fundamental truth as plainly and as forcefully as possible at the very outset of this report. No one has the right to impede the access of an MPP seeking to enter the Legislature to represent his or her constituency, be it by picket line, demonstration or otherwise. It is simply wrong to do so and breaches an important principle highly valued in our democratic system. The attempt to do this was the original sin from which all other transgressions that occurred in this matter flowed."7 McCormack pointed out that Estey had limited interest in the labour relations aspect: "The Commission did not give enough recognition to either the fact that these events did occur in a particular context or that the legislature had played an active role in creating the strike. The report is too limited in its consideration of labour relations. Estey was impatient when we tried to bring in labour relations evidence. He was of the view that the right of MPPS to gain access to the legislature was really the most important right and that all other rights had to give way. He didn't seem very open-minded about considering the weight to be given to other rights." Estey's analysis also begged the question of "contender as rulemaker." It failed to address the behaviour of the Harris government - how it had changed the rules in mid-game. Who really showed disrespect for the law? Surely it was the Harris government, which had used the law in the most cynical manner to give itself the advantage. Hardly without sin, it had cast the first stone, the first few stones. For a few hours on 18 March, striking civil servants would not let the government hide. Our rally was neither an insurrection nor a mob. We were just civil servants on strike, wanting a few words with the employer and rulemaker. And we made our point. Gord Wilson had no apologies for the events of that day: "Parliamentary privilege? They can't use that because the parliament is the employer." Also, there was a strike in progress.

C H A P T E R 13

Collective Bargaining during the Strike We could always hear the bullhorn from the picket line on 720 Bay Street. That was our connection. We could watch them from the balcony. That reminded us there were real people involved. Terry Stinson, OPSEU central negotiating team, commenting at the Delta Chelsea Inn on the negotiations.

The heat was on for both sides. OPSEU was feeling the heat from the public and from its own members - a hundred dollars a week doesn't go very far - and the government was feeling the heat not only from its employees on the picket lines but also from the public, particularly after 18 March. Meanwhile, OPSEU was using the strike weapon at full throttle, and the government was responding by going after the viability of the picket lines in every possible way and by every possible means, including the media. The target was always the picket lines. Without the picket lines there would be no strike. While the politics of the strike unfolded on and around the picket lines, the resolution lay at the bargaining table. There had been some negotiations between the time of the strike vote and the beginning of the strike, but the last significant move by the union had been in late January, when it dropped ninety-five demands and presented its five packages of proposals: job security, pensions, negotiability of the new classification system and its wage grid, improvements for the unclassified, and a cost-of-living allowance. The last significant move by the government had been just before the strike vote, when it doubled the severance to laid-off employees. On the key issues, the two sides remained very much apart. The connection between the government's bargaining posture and its overall political program was clear to all of us in OPSEU, and the strik-

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ing membership felt right at home with the oppositional discourse of the strike. Andy Todd put it this way: "The strike was about opposing everything they stand for. We became the extraparliamentary opposition. We were the front line. The Ontario we knew was gone. We stood in the way, and they wanted to crush us." There were now picket lines throughout the province. OPSEU had been making its mark, and after 18 March the government knew that it would have to settle with the union. Allowing the strike to continue would be politically inadvisable, and legislating the union back to work would only reinforce the Tory government's bully image. Elizabeth Huitema, who was on OPSEU'S central negotiating team, said: "By the fourth week of the strike, they really started to negotiate seriously. In the fifth week, they went non-stop." THE BARGAINING ISSUES

The government still wanted to remove the job-security language in the collective agreement that it had inherited from the Rae government, and it proposed a human resources system that would reduce the cost of laying off employees. In this proposal, there was no money for retraining, and the opportunities for bumping were severely tightened. The Tories didn't like all the job-security provisions and mechanics. They wanted a simpler system: once you get the pink slip, out the door you go. The only way to access the double severance would be if you were laid off. They didn't want to offer incentives for employees to leave voluntarily, since that could undermine the whole exercise. It had to be the employer who decided who goes. Voluntary exit programs were too unpredictable. There was also the unresolved question of successor rights, as Andy Todd explained: "We wanted to protect those whose jobs were moving to another employer by reinstalling some version of successor rights, to follow our work wherever it goes, and recognition of seniority." Angelo Pesce, the government's chief negotiator, viewed the matter differently: "The real issue in the strike was that OPSEU wanted to turn around the legislation, to reinstate successor rights and pension bridging in the agreement. That could never happen." The short-term layoff was still on the table at the beginning of the strike. The government wanted its managers to have this tool so that they could save money during slow periods. By laying off workers at such times, they would be able to meet their budgets. But this would begin the transformation of thousands of full-time civil servants into temporary workers, and the principles of job security and seniority would be weakened. Such a move would deny them access to job-

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security language and the benefits package. As the government put pressure on ministries to save money, the ministries would apply that pressure downward onto their managers. And if the short-term layoff was part of their new human resources tool kit, seniority would suffer. There was a large amount of management discretion in determining who would get laid off and when. Pensions were still on the table too. OPSEU wanted to regain at least some of what had been lost in Bill 2,6. It wanted to recreate a bridge for laid-off older workers to access an early retirement package. The employer's proposal of 6 February had made some small gestures, but it involved too few employees. From OPSEU'S side, Bekerman's funnel was still on the table. It was OPSEU'S version of a human resources strategy for an organizational downsize, a scheme to reduce the size of the workforce with few casualties. It included voluntary exit programs, severance and lump-sum packages, the use of normal attrition rates to achieve downsizing goals, improved access to early retirement, expanded bumping rights, and retraining; employees who fell out of the bottom of the funnel would get retraining and be better prepared for the job market. OPSEU'S objective was to maintain some job-security rights. Workers whose jobs were transferred would have some rights to those jobs, and workers who lost their jobs to downsizing would have the funnel. The government's objective was the exact opposite - that employees would have no claim to their transferred jobs and that OPSEU would certainly have no role. The government had passed Bill 7 to make privatization more attractive to investors, and it had no intention of changing this situation while bargaining with OPSEU. Laid-off employees, with their union wages and benefits packages, would quietly disappear; their redeployment and displacement (bumping) rights would be curtailed; and as for retraining exiting workers, that was out of the question. The government wanted the downsizing done simply and cheaply, and it was sweeping away the current language in the collective agreement that dealt with moderate downsizing with small job loss. Instead, there would be excessive downsizing with huge job loss. It was all in The Common Sense Revolution. Angelo Pesce remarked: "I felt that the strike was something that had to happen. It wasn't a purely administrative set of negotiations. There was too much politics, the whole antigovernment piece that OPSEU was a part of, the whole government agenda. Most governments don't take that kind of interest in negotiations, but it was a key part. There were layers of politics at the top. It was unduly complicated. For the first time the union had some way to counter government actions in these things. It was nasty stuff that we wanted to impose on you."

192.

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There was no direct bargaining for the first two weeks of the strike, but there was public jockeying for position by both sides as the media became the bargaining table. Negotiations were conducted in the open between OPSEU and the government. In a fight for public and member/employee opinion, OPSEU presented itself not simply as the wronged party but also as the party fighting Harris in the interests of the Ontario public. It argued that the fate of workers in the Ontario Public Service was a concern for all Ontarians. As Michael Stohr of local 547 said, "The collective agreement we work in is the environment the kids live in. The working conditions become the quality of the care that you get." OPSEU made the same point on privatization, saying that if the machinery of government and public services was transferred to profit-seeking private firms and the compensation of the employees was reduced, the quality of the political and social fabric would be impaired. In other words, you cannot separate how the work is done from the quality of the work and the quality of the service. For its part, the government argued that it was broke, that it had inherited a $io-billion-a-year debt from the Rae government, and that it had to balance the books. In the 1995 election, it had campaigned on reducing the size of the public debt and the public service. The audience of the public debate was the picket lines, and the relative strength of the picket lines was OPSEU'S bargaining power. Although the government was continuing essential services and a few other functions, it was only just managing to do so, and it couldn't move ahead with its political agenda. By the end of the second week of the strike it knew this. Any remaining doubt was removed on 18 March. A significant part of the public posturing between OPSEU and the government was over the cost of OPSEU'S proposal, Bekerman's funnel. The union priced the proposal at $494 million, while the government put the price tag at $1.5 billion. Leah Casselman called the government's estimate fundamentally flawed. "I won't mince words," she said. "They're wrong." Dave Johnson said, "I wish the union's costs were true, but unfortunately I have to deal with reality. Their costs are greatly understated and they're just not accurate."1 Why was there a zoo per cent difference? Bekerman had two theories: "We assumed a high rate of jumping out in the buyout, and they assumed a high rate of hanging on for the retraining. That largely accounts for the difference. Retraining can be expensive. We never got numbers, though. The government never gave hard figures. It was a false debate all the way through. But both sides felt that it was important to do that." The mediator John Mather observed, "In all my years,

Collective Bargaining during the Strike 193 whenever there is a dispute about costing I've never seen the parties resolve the methodologies. With the same data you can come up with a hundred different results." Frank Rooney staged a press conference with Casselman and Joyce Hansen, OPSEU'S senior researcher, and they spent hours explaining to the media, with graphs and figures, why the cost was only $494 million. "We had this boring two-hour press conference, pissing off Leah and Joyce," recalled Rooney. "But it worked. It got another figure out there. There were two competing sets of numbers." THE ESSENTIAL

SERVICES DISPUTES

The only direct negotiating going on in the first two weeks of the strike was over essential services. Each side accused the other of violating the agreements. The government charged the union with not providing essential service workers. OPSEU accused the government of operating nonessential services. Both sides were frequently right. It was all part of the strike. The government wanted to expand the sphere of essential work, while OPSEU wanted it shrunk. A negotiation and arbitration process was already in place to deal with essential service disputes. Its purpose was to have an enforcement level above the local. Picket lines sent complaints to the union negotiating team, and essential service managers sent complaints to their ministry's strike response teams, which sent the complaints on to the Corporate Strike Response Team. The corporate team then decided what to do about the matter, and sometimes it passed the complaint on to the negotiating team. The OPSEU bargaining team's response to a complaint from the picket line was either to shrug it off or try to negotiate a settlement with the employer's team. The government's strike response team tried to keep central control of all complaints, but this did not work with Corrections. Malcolm Smeaton, manager of the team, recalled: "Initially we had a lot of contact with Corrections. Later they moved to the Chelsea Hotel, where they set up their ministry strike headquarters. In hindsight that might not have been a good move from the corporate perspective. The talks were taking place there, and as issues arose in Corrections - work refusals, whatever - the ministry people skipped through the process and went directly to the negotiators on the government side, which we didn't want to happen. We wanted to separate the management response to the strike from the negotiations." However, in most cases the correct procedure was followed, and the matter was handled by the union and management negotiators, who tried to agree on a settlement. If that failed, the complaint was taken to an arbitrator. Diane Bull, the OPSEU negotiator for the Institutional

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and Health Care bargaining unit, explained: "There was a dispute-resolution process with the arbitrators, a single-person panel. We'd try to work it out with the management side. If that failed, we'd get quick and rough justice. The system didn't really work. In the middle of the strike it couldn't work. You'd get awards that one side would ignore." Brian Mayes negotiated some of these disputes: "We caught them at Queen's Park using too many security guards. They had more guards than was permitted in the agreement. We got tipped off by one of our essential service guards, and we tried to negotiate a settlement. But it finally took an arbitrator to tell them to use fewer guards." Mayes remembers hundreds of disputes coming from the locals: "We had three people on call twenty-four hours a day to do arbitrations. Members were constantly faxing us stuff: inadequate lunches, or somebody carrying garbage at Queen Street Mental Health Centre which wasn't in the contract. A lot of it was trivial." Diane Bull had similar stories: "On the first day there were hundreds of disputes. They were mostly from the union. Management filed the bigger ones. Some of our disputes were petty. 'They cooked french fries in the kitchen' - food was supposed to be pre-prepared." Nancy Pridham, who was on the Institutional and Health Care team, said that there were "millions of disputes" at Queen Street mental Health Centre: "There were complaints from our people that management wasn't following the rules. Staff wasn't getting breaks; there were twelve-hour shifts with no breaks, no help from management. At our facility they brought in five thousand TV dinners. (They had five hundre in-patients who had to be fed three times a day.) Halfway through the strike they ordered more. Some dinners weren't even cooked. They were served frozen. We attempted to pull the cooking staff - there was only a pretence that they were cooking - but we couldn't pull them because it was negotiated. There were disputes in the correctional facilities. Nursing staff was normally accompanied by a guard, but now there was no guard. Management wouldn't accompany. It was unsafe." THE AMAPCEO DEAL

The second-largest bargaining unit in the Ontario Public Service was represented by the Association of Management, Administrative, and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO). Before the CECBA reforms of 1994, employees in this unit did not have collectivebargaining rights. For decades, OPSEU had been lobbying and campaigning for bargaining rights for these employees, and in February 1994, the new CECBA granted bargaining rights to about seven thousand of them. By and large, they included higher-level, higher-paid employ-

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ees of the Ontario government and, as discussed earlier, rather than join OPSEU, they created their own bargaining agent, AMAPCEO. Their president, Gary Gannage, explained why: "The great majority of people in the seventh unit didn't see themselves as a blue-collar unionist but as a professional. The shape of AMAPCEO was around professional lines. They saw themselves more as managers than as unionists. That's the orientation that AMAPCEO took - professional, nonconfrontational problem solving where appropriate, apolitical, and unaffiliated." Their existence as a bargaining unit was not the only achievement that AMAPCEO and its members enjoyed because of OPSEU'S efforts. In early 1996, when the OPSEU strike broke out, AMAPCEO was in the middle of negotiating its first collective agreement with the government. It had started the process in October 1995, and on 6 March, in the second week of the OPSEU strike, it completed negotiations for the jobsecurity language of the collective agreement. In a highly unusual move, AMAPCEO then arranged for a membership ratification of only that language, while large parts of the agreement remained unnegotiated. The language was ratified by 8 8 per cent of the membership on 20 March. This settlement affected the OPSEU strike, since our strike was primarily over job-security issues, especially the human resources package that OPSEU wanted in order to ease the effects of large layoffs with voluntary exit, normal attrition rates, and retraining. The AMAPCEO deal allowed for recognition of seniority, bumping, direct assignment to permanent vacancies, and a six-month pay-in-lieu option. But there was nothing about successor rights in the AMAPCEO settlement. The AMAPCEO deal set the pattern for OPSEU. Our senior negotiator Andre Bekerman was not happy: "The AMAPCEO deal was very serious for us. It was an attempt to undercut us, to force a pattern on us, and it partially succeeded. They sold us out. It was a tactical move by the government: 'Take it or it will be worse.' AMAPCEO had been negotiating since October and getting nowhere, and suddenly they get this. They get handed a bribe by the government and take it. Their power was to be in the right place at the right time. OPSEU was on strike. That was the only power they had. That's classically the position of a small management union or a small white-collar union in those kinds of situations." Gannage agreed that it had set a pattern for an OPSEU settlement: "The entitlements we got from the employer are probably the best in the Ontario Public Service. We're proud of the fact we made a contribution to resolve the dispute, the OPSEU strike. The mediator took the terms of our agreement to the table. It was an impetus. It ultimately became the framework of an agreement." When I asked Gannage if AMAPCEO had benefited from the strike, he replied: "Both OPSEU and the employer benefited from the presence of another bargaining agent.

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The entire community benefited. We set the standards for what the rest of the community got. And they're good." Government negotiator Angelo Pesce agreed that the deal with AMAPCEO had been motivated by the OPSEU strike: "The AMAPCEO situation came together at the right time, and I took advantage of the situation. We negotiated a protocol with AMAPCEO. They were worried that a first contract would take a long time and they were concerned about job security, particularly delayering. They were interested in negotiating a job security clause. We could do the rest after. In the middle of the OPSEU strike we had an opportunity to make a deal with AMAPCEO. At this point we saw the tactical advantage of agreeing with AMAPCEO with what we were willing and capable of offering. They wanted to ratify. They needed it as a showpiece." Pesce went on to explain how the deal with AMAPCEO was aimed at the OPSEU picket lines: "Given the big issue in the OPSEU strike, I thought it would have a huge impact on people on the line. 'Why can't we have the same thing?' they would ask. It would do more than demoralize. They would put pressure on the union to make a deal along the same basis." Unionists use the term 'whipsaw' to describe what happened with AMAPCEO, OPSEU, and the Government of Ontario. When an employer is dealing with more than one bargaining agent, it will try to cut a deal with the weaker or more inexperienced union. This sets a lower standard for the other bargaining agent. O P S E U AND THE G O V E R N M E N T GO BACK TO THE TABLE

At a Queen's Park rally on 8 March, Leah Casselman announced that the mediator had called the two parties back to the table. The mediator, Paul Gardner, wanted to get things moving: "It was two weeks. Enough time had gone by to get back to the table." Casselman also told the rally that earlier in the week the government had hinted that the layoffs would be in the 13,000 range, which would mean lower layoff figures for OPSEU members - around 9400. She also said that the tentative deal with AMAPCEO proved "that they can bargain with people. "z On Tuesday, 12. March, the government made three moves on its job security proposal. The first was a watered-down version of voluntary exit; an employee who wished to leave with the double severance could trade jobs with a laid-off employee, but only if the laid-off employee could perform the work. The second move was the lifting of the five-year minimum service requirement for the second bump. The big move was the complete removal of the proposed short-term layoff. Dave Johnson called a press conference to announce this change. This is a serious taboo

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in bargaining, and OPSEU rebuked Johnson for talking to the press. This was a problem for much of the remainder of the talks. John Mather recalls talking to both sides: "There was such a war of words going on in the media. It took longer to negotiate the blackout than it lasted." Johnson repeatedly used the media to try to weaken the picket lines. Right until the very end of the strike, the government never abandoned its strikebreaking strategy. It would have preferred to cause the picket lines to collapse and destroy the union's credibility rather than negotiate a deal. On 14 March, Johnson announced that the talks were at a stalemate and that the strike could drag on for a very long time. He accused OPSEU of being more concerned with bolstering its strike fund and picket lines than ending the strike: "The speculation is that they're building up for a very long strike."3 This announcement was made two days after the government had made public its three job security moves and one week after the announcement of the deal with AMAPCEO. That same week the government released strikebreaking figures on both Wednesday and Friday. Johnson played with the strikers' hopes for an early end to the strike. Dennis Collom, who was on OPSEU'S central bargaining team, observed: "The media was a roller coaster. We kept telling the pickets to ignore the media. Johnson would lie. He would announce that we were close to a settlement when it wasn't true." The government's strategy to weaken the morale of the strikers was first to raise the picketers' spirits with the hope of an early end to the strike, and then to follow up with an announcement intended to bring on despair - and to blame the union leadership for everything. Ron Elliot thought the government used the media effectively: "Johnson talking to the media hurt us. We never gave the government enough credit. They were more than an even match." Others agreed. Said Joan Gates in Whitby, "What got people demoralized were the quotes from Johnson." Said Ifi Zafiriadis at Queen's Park, "Johnson's remarks demoralized us until we realized he was lying." And said Nella Belcastro in Kingston, "When Dave Johnson said there would be no settlement for weeks, we almost lost the lines." Not knowing when to stop, Johnson took one more stab at the picket lines. On Tuesday, 2.6 March, both sides indicated that a tentative deal to end the strike was very close.4 The very next day, Johnson predicted that the strike could drag on for another two weeks or more. He accused OPSEU of adding new items to the table when in fact the six local teams were preparing to begin their negotiations as scheduled. "We thought we were very close to a deal, but we seem to have taken many steps backwards and frankly I don't know where we're at," said Johnson. He was following the familiar pattern: first announce some good news; follow up with bad news. Casselman reacted strongly:

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"We're trying to bargain a collective agreement and if he'd just shut his mouth long enough and stop micro-managing it, we could get it done."5 On that same day, Johnson released new strikebreaking figures. According to the government, the numbers were approaching six thousand. Having given the picketers his message of despair - that there was no end in sight to the strike - Johnson was now giving them one of futility - that their workmates were going back to work (which wasn't even true). OPSEU reacted fast and hard to Johnson's public pronouncements. A yellow leaflet with the headline "Johnson Lies" appeared on all picket lines the next morning, 28 March. It was direct and disrespectful. After explaining that OPSEU had not thrown new demands on the table, it took some personal swipes at Johnson: "Too bad Johnson doesn't know what a media blackout is. The purpose of a media blackout is to let negotiators work without political interference from stupid comments like Johnson's. He should keep his mouth shut." The leaflet then implored the picketers to hang on, and it ended with the message: "Johnson's goal is to throw OPSEU members off balance and cause a panic on the picket lines. Don't fall for it. Stay strong." RETURN-TO-WORK PROTOCOL

At the end of a strike, the two parties negotiate a return-to-work protocol. This is a collective agreement that spells out how continuous service issues are to be treated, the status of unclassified contracts, the accrual of credits, the situation of employees who were on layoff notice during the strike, pension buy-back provisions, and reprisals. The strike is not settled until the return-to-work protocol is negotiated, and it is usually a straightforward process. The negotiation of this return-to-work protocol was anything but straightforward. Dennis Collom of OPSEU'S central bargaining team recalled that it took three days to negotiate. In fact, it almost sank the entire deal, because the employer refused to include a "no reprisals" clause in the agreement. There were some government officials who wanted to take reprisals against some of the OPSEU militants, especially in Corrections. They wanted the ability to discipline and possibly dismiss some of them. There was no way that the bargaining team could sign off such a deal. It would have been considered an unprincipled act of betrayal. This negotiation went right to the wire. Meanwhile, OPSEU was getting uneasy. The union had already told the strikers that a settlement was imminent, and there was a fear that they would give up and return to work in droves after such a valiant effort. Yet it was impossible to

Collective Bargaining during the Strike 199 compromise the strike militants. Bekerman remembers that evening: "They told us early on Thursday evening that they were planning to do reprisals. I called an emergency meeting with Leah. I proposed that we blow the whole thing. Leah agreed immediately. I called the other side. We met at 3 AM and told them, 'As of now, the deal that was on the table on Wednesday is off. The strike is unlimited. We are escalating.' The prospect of pulling essential services workers was very real. I didn't care that they would legislate us back or that they could write the contract. There was too much to lose, to expose our militants to retribution. You don't take your wounded over to the other side. Everybody agreed." When Casselman was asked about that night, she said: "How close did we get to pulling essential services in the fifth week? On a scale of one to ten and the clock's ticking, we were at nine. The message from the employer was reprisals. But Runciman came through for us." Bob Runciman, the minister of solicitor general and correctional services, was also a former union leader, and Casselman spoke to him during the night. He then spoke to the cabinet at their regular Friday morning meeting, and they agreed to a no-reprisals clause. There was an irony in this. Earlier in the week, OPSEU had been demanding Runciman's resignation over the behaviour of the OPP on 18 March. Regarding the reprisals, Angelo Pesce recalled: "There were some things we could have laid charges on. Generally you agree to no retaliation. Who's going to sign a deal that allows prosecution and discipline? Johnson consulted with Runciman. Johnson was more than willing to go ahead, but he wanted to make the decision with Runciman's blessing." The negotiations at the six local tables came to a halt until the return-to-work negotiation was completed. They were all pretty well finished, but no team would sign off until it had the go-ahead from the centre. That happened on Friday morning. According to Brian Mayes, "all six local teams pretty well settled for the same language that existed in the previous contracts. The government dropped minor concessionary demands." On Sunday, 31 March, the members of the Ontario Public Service voted to ratify the new collective agreements by over 9 5 per cent, and they returned to work either on Monday morning or on their next scheduled shift. THE END PRODUCT

What did the union achieve with the five-week strike? Was the contract of 31 March better than the one that was rejected on 18 February? In the first place, the short-term layoff was gone. Second, there were now

2.00

OPSEU ON STRIKE

three bumps with no "years of service" restrictions, and the bumping was done in the early stages of the layoff rather than near the end. There was also an expansion of bumping rights; laid-off employees could bump into a job in another ministry where they had previously worked. That was not in the previous contract. Third, there were some changes in the pension entitlements and language. Employees who were laid off within three years of their eligibility for an unreduced pension in an early retirement package could now bridge their way in. Did we win back the benefit that we lost with Bill 26? I asked Marcia Gillespie. "Not really," she said. "The pension bridging is temporary and helps people very close to retirement. The 'rule of 55' is statutory and would have helped more laid-off workers. The difference is so huge that it is like the gnat or the cow that the gnat is on. It's good. It does things for people. But it doesn't come close to the rule of 55." There was also a factor 80 reopener.6 Anybody who had already turned down the factor 80 would have another chance in the event of layoff. If that employee was laid off, the window of eligibility would be open for a month. The new contract also had a reassurance from the government saying: "It is not the intention of the Employer to amend the OPSEU Pension Plan or any related documents. Where the employer wishes to do so, it will negotiate any changes with the Union." OPSEU thus had a reaffirmation of joint trusteeship of the OPSEU pension plan. Fourth, there were some minor improvements for unclassified workers. Instead of receiving benefit entitlements, they received a z per cent wage increase; and anyone who performed the same job for two years as an unclassified employee could claim that job as a full-time classified employee. Fifth, with the lifting of the Social Contract on i April, which coincided with the first day after the strike, OPS employees got back the 2. per cent in salaries which they had lost for each of the last three years. Also, merit increases were reinstated and dental benefits were brought to 1996 rates. For its part, the government agreed to design and implement the new classification system with some consultation. However, salaries were to remain frozen until the next round of bargaining. The real sleeper was the term "reasonable efforts." This was a watered-down version of successor rights which the union finally accepted. Section i of appendix 9 of the new collective agreement read: "The employer will make reasonable efforts to ensure that, where there is a disposition or any other transfer of bargaining unit functions to the private or broader public sectors, employees in the bargaining unit are offered positions with the new employer on terms and conditions that are as close as possible to the then existing terms and conditions of employment of employees in the bargaining unit." The government was acknowledging that employees had some rights to divested and privatized work.

C H A P T E R 14

The Strike Ends

After five weeks on strike, OPSEU won a major improvement over the Government's final offer. The real significance of the outcome lies in the fact that the Government had to make its first compromise on an agenda it was determined to push through without compromise. Moreover, the Harris Government had to negotiate seriously with an organization that they thought would collapse once forced to strike. There was no collapse. While the strike vote was 66%, only 10% of the union membership scabbed. In fact, while I was assigned to coordinate CAW strike support to OPSEU in the Toronto area, I saw the strikers' militancy and resolve harden as the strike wore on.1 Steve Watson, Canadian Auto Workers

For many of the strikers, the return to work was a triumphant affair. At the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, OPSEU members marched into work singing "Solidarity Forever." In Oshawa, they marched to work with a piper leading the way, and "the four strike leaders held open the front doors of the building," recalled Sally Rudka. In St Catharines, Dan McKnight described how they did "one last picket around the building at 10:30" on the Monday morning. Similarly, at Queen's Park, a few hundred of us gathered at 8:30 AM for a last hurrah before returning to work. We looked funny, dressed to go to work. After five weeks of living on the edge, of blocking doors, chanting, marching, and picketing, we were going into the Macdonald Block to take up our jobs again. Ken Taylor, of local 534 in Toronto, said that on his first day back at work, "there was a big sign on the wall saying 'No scabs allowed.' The commissioner and other managers had put the sign up."

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In the earlier chapters of the book, I laid out the background of the strike, as well as the history of the two main actors, OPSEU and the Ontario government. I described the effects that Bills 7 and 2.6 and other measures of the Common Sense Revolution had had on members of the Ontario Public Service, and I showed how this in turn had led to the strike. Many elements of this tapestry of historical forces and relationships are being profoundly redefined as the twentieth century draws to a close. But important though all this is, it is only the background of this book. The real story of the strike is the story of the picket line - the communities that developed on the lines and the picketers themselves, their fears and hopes, their work, their beliefs, and their families. The magnificent thing about the OPSEU strike was that it worked. OPS employees made the message of the union their own, and they transformed that message into picket lines that stood up to Mike Harris and his government. We sometimes wonder what would happen if we dropped the controls from our lives and did things ourselves. How would bureaucracies, including the union, react? We had a glimpse of this during the five-week strike. In my research for this book, I interviewed some 12,5 OPSEU members who had picketed in twenty-five towns and cities across Ontario. Because of my visibility in the union, they knew who I was, and they all wanted to tell me their story of the strike - what they did, why they did it, and what it meant. PERSONAL MEMORIES

The strike was a magical time for me, in my own life, feeling so proud, walking through downtown Toronto from one picket line to another. You couldn't walk far in Toronto without running into a picket line. I remember the special thrill of my own local's picket line on Bay and Wellesley. I always tried to be there at the end of the day. Picketing with my workmates from the Information Technology and Systems Branch of the Ministry of Education and Training meant a lot to me. But I also remember Tory MPP Terence Young coming to our picket line to insult us in the last week of the strike. We were disgusted with him and later called his office to tell his secretary just that. I remember the press conference with Howard Moscoe at Metro Hall, when we asked the TTC to allow us to picket or to close th entrance to Queen's Park. That was quite a press conference. Howard was great. Three days later, hundreds of OPSEU picketers travelled the subway to the TTC headquarters at Davisville and held a demonstratio at TTC headquarters. I went upstairs with Leslynne Jones of local 51 to speak with David Gunn, the general manager of the TTC, and again

The Strike Ends 2,03

we demanded that the TTC either shut the Queen's Park entrance o allow us to picket. Again both were refused. Later that week, Gary Shaul and I made a deposition to the TTC, and Metro Councillor Jack Layton spoke to the transit commission in support of our view. But still there was no action. So together with Mike Seaward and Carolyn Egan of the Steelworkers and OPSEU staffer Gavin Leeb, we organized the occupation of the Queen's Park TTC tunnel. We stayed in the tunnel fo about four hours. It was quite an event - striking civil servants defending their rights and challenging the Ontario government, the police, the legal system, and the TTC. In our hearts, we knew that we were right That afternoon, when I addressd the Toronto Steelworkers' area council, Mike Seaward introduced me as the first president of OPSEU/Steel local i, and I told the Steelworkers that I thought Michael Lewis was the first president of our new local. At that moment, we all understood the meaning of solidarity. There was the same wonderful atmosphere of warmth and support whenever I spoke to sympathizers. In the second week of the strike, I shaved, dressed up in jacket and tie, and drove out to the airport to speak to an OECTA convention. The delegates rose to their feet when I told them that we all opposed Harris. They passed the hat and raised $z5,000. There was again electricity in the air the evening I spoke to CUPE local 79 - inside workers for the City of Toronto. They donated $10,000. It was the same story whether I was speaking to a meeting of the Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild, to a rally of about two thousand injured workers organized by Orlando Buonastella and Marian Endicott, or to the East Indian Workers' Association in Mississauga, to which I was invited by Jhalman Gosal. I was always warmly received. They all supported the OPSEU strike. During the second week of the strike, I expressed my disappointment to some of the AMAPCEO leaders at their headquarters on Carlton and Yonge streets in downtown Toronto. I thought that they should be stronger and more open in supporting our strike - like some of their members, who were giving us wonderful support. The AMAPCEO chapter at the Mowat Block donated $7,000 to our local, and many joined our picket line at lunch and at breaks. We were always delighted to see them. Another vivid memory is of the great picket line at Thistletown Regional Centre, where I conducted a local election right there on the line because local 547 needed to elect delegates to the upcoming OPSEU convention. Afterwards, OPSEU staffer Sandra Harper turned up the music from her car, and we all danced the macarena. I also remember when hundreds of members of CUPE local i, Toronto Hydro, marched up to Queen's Park to join OPSEU strikers on 2.6 February, the first day of both our strikes. It was wonderful to see OPSEU and CUPE pulling

2O4

OPSEU ON STRIKE

together in their separate yet connected fights against the Common Sense Revolution. I picketed with strikers at the water-treatment plant in west-end Toronto, on the shores of Lake Ontario, when local 584 president John Mills complained about the number of essential service workers. Mills was a British trade unionist; for him, a strike means that everybody is out. There were many times when I pleaded with strikebreakers to stay out. I could never understand how people could cross their own picket line or how a member of OPSEU could side with Mike Harris against fellow workers. One scene I shall never forget is the argument I had with Frank Raposo, Queen's Park building manager, in the last week of the strike, when the building management at the Macdonald Block put up signs blaming OPSEU for the long line-ups. Some picketers who found the signs provocative had covered them with OPSEU'S "Scabs Can't Hide" signs. After all, we had a protocol with them allowing a fifteen-minute delay. Raposo and I yelled at each other and used "uncivil servant" language. He called the police, who told me that OPSEU was defacing the building and that our signs had to come down. I told them that Raposo had started the whole business with his signs. Eventually, Raposo agreed to take his signs down. For some of our militants, that was not good enough. Anyway, all the signs came down. On another occasion, I stood with hundreds of other striking civil servants in front of the land registry office in the Atrium Towers after a newspaper article had claimed that the office was not really affected by the strike. In what was a virtual invasion of the Atrium, we crammed into elevators, charged up the stairs, placed ourselves in front of all the entrances, and chanted "Scabs go home!" The land speculators and real estate lawyers had a fit. The police came off the elevator, grabbed me, and pulled me inside the office, where I scolded them for pulling me over the picket line. But they were not up for a deep discussion on picket line protocol. They wanted us out of there - or else. We left after an hour. Another memory - an especially warm one - is of greeting the dawn as I drove around with Tim Little, Jim Tait, and Sandra Harper, starting the daily visits to the picket lines around Toronto. And I shall never forget the cellphones. We were an army with cellphones, hundreds of them. Every picket line and every local president had a cellphone. I got mine about two weeks before the strike and returned it to OPSEU treasurer Bill Kuehnbaum one day after the strike. My phone bill was eight pages long. I normally hate cellphones and people who walk along the street or drive cars talking into them, but I have to admit that they were really useful during the strike.

The Strike Ends 2.05

A less pleasant memory is of being interviewed by a not-so-friendly Andy Barrie on CBC radio's Metro Morning from the Queen's Park strike headquarters in the ONA building. He couldn't even pronounce my name properly. And there was the time I had an argument with a strikebreaker at the Ministry of Transportation complex in North York - a man I used to work with - who said he would respect the picket line if I would stop being a Jew and accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour. Then there was the picket line at the CHIP office on Eglinton and Yonge in Toronto. In the first week of the strike, Bill Howes from the Toronto Labour Council, Elizabeth Byce from CUPW, David Kidd from CUPE, Valerie Hunnius from OPEIU, and John MacLennan from CEP showed the nervous and green OPSEU picketers how to keep scabs out of the building. By the third week of the strike, that building was next to impossible to enter. In the final two weeks, the government filed for two injunctions against that picket line. It became a legend during the strike. I had to take Cesar Dacanay, president of local 524 (Ministry of the Attorney General) to a clinic after he was punched and kicked by a strikebreaker. I told him to go home after he had seen the doctor, but when I went back to the picket line two hours later, there he was. Another example of bravery that remains strong in my mind was the courage of Jean Guglietti of local 5 20 as she stared down the former stewards in her branch, who were scabbing and scab herding. The toughest times were when we were criticized by our own picketers, like the time I was surrounded by a hundred or so picketers at the provincial laboratories on Highway 401. Their local vice-president was working inside as an essential service worker, and they took it out on me. We took a lot of flak over essential services and also over the measley strike pay. At a special meeting of OPSEU'S executive committee on the third Saturday, Toronto board members asked if we could raise the strike pay, but treasurer Bill Kuehnbaum and the rest of the Executive Board were against it. We didn't have enough funds. At that meeting, we also discussed the implications of back-to-work legislation - always a lingering threat in the background - and we talked about what might happen if we pulled essential service workers and provoked the government to declare the strike illegal. We were getting a lot of heat on essential services. There was a growing feeling that the union had given up too much, that the strike was too limited, and that essential services were prolonging it. The subject was always brought up at the Sunday meetings we held with the local presidents and picket captains to put them in the picture and hear their complaints. Walter Belyea from the collective-bargaining department always came to report and pass on the picketers' concerns. A lot of the

2.06

OPSEU ON STRIKE

complaints were about scabs. Why couldn't the union do more about them? People were most likely to complain at the end of a long day. Stewart Ross of local 5Z7 reminded me of my efforts to get a CBC camera man removed from the room at a late-afternoon meeting at the downtown cluster in Toronto. Who knows what a tired picketer might grumble about at the end of the day? And who knows what might lead off the news that evening? Yet the complaints were few compared to the companionship and sense of community I found on the picket lines and at strike headquarters all around Toronto: at the ONA office on Grenville Street, the Cluster Cafe at 16 Phipps, the 'Hop and Grape' on College Street, the LIUNA building on Wilson, and many other places. And it was always a treat to sit with strikers from local 518, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, who would soon be relocating to Guelph. The Stem Restaurant, where they kept a running tab, was also their strike headquarters, and they stored their picket signs in the back near the kitchen. I could also count on a hot cup of a coffee and a danish with local president Michael Chapman. The strike certainly left many very good memories. One of the most outstanding is of being handed a check for $i million from the Steelworkers in front of the Macdonald Block at Queen's Park. Another recurrent memory is of trying to stay awake as much as possible because I knew that this great experience couldn't go on for ever, and I didn't want to miss one moment of it. WHO WON?

When I think back or am asked about the significance of the strike, I go along with Tony Carneiro's assessment: "We fought for this for many years, and at last our efforts were fruitful. Now, we're able to do something about own plight in the OPS." But how do you determine who won? One way is simply to assess the difference between the government's "best" offer that was turned down in mid-February and its offer that was ratified in late March. Richard Loreto takes this approach: "When OPSEU'S locals ratified the new collective agreement at the end of March by a vote of 95 per cent, the union's solidarity was high and it could claim victory on several matters relating to the issue of job security." Loreto listed six gains for OPSEU members, but he then qualified his remarks by saying that "in the end, OPSEU could only blunt, not stop, the cost-reduction program of the Harris government."2 At the outset of writing this book, when I followed my inclination and talked to the people who stood on the picket line, I realized that

The Strike Ends ^OJ

each striker was a microcosm of the entire strike. Each picketer embodied all the issues of the strike, and each picketer became a player in the outcome of the strike, through both the union and the picket line, not as an observer but as an activist. Every OPSEU member knew what it meant to stay on the picket line, just as they knew what it meant to go in to work. Going to work meant siding with the Common Sense Revolution. Standing on the picket line meant opposing it in all sorts of ways: holding up a delivery truck, preventing scabs from crossing the line, negotiating a protocol, holding up essential services work, walking the picket line, blocking the Queen's Park tunnel, invading a building that had a government office, attending a rally, signing a strike roster, distributing a union newsletter, talking to the media, staring down a Tory MPP, scrounging food and wood, distributing strike pay, joining a flying picket, chanting anti-Harris songs, talking to the public, braving bitterly cold weather - and, at all costs, holding the line. These activities put the strikers at the very centre of their own history, so I asked every striker I interviewed, "Who won?" The majority thought that OPSEU had, because the expectation before the strike had been that OPSEU would never get a strike vote, never go on strike, and never stay on strike. We did all three; Dave Johnson was forced to negotiate with us. Here are some of the opinions: Sandra Noad, London: "OPSEU members won the strike - the support in the regions and in the locals. The members stood up. The strike was directed at the employer. The anger was there. There were people on the picket line who I never expected." Andy Todd, OPSEU chief negotiator: "It did make a difference. Nobody except the hard right and the scabs thought that the strike was a waste of time or not a win." Leah Casselman, OPSEU President: "We were on the front line. We were their first target. It made us into a union. It was a real defining moment for OPSEU." Ron Elliot, London: "The membership won the strike." Mike Oliver, Cornwall: "It was the battleship against the dinghy. Harris had all the tools, and he didn't sink us. All unionized members won. Mike Harris had a timetable, and we threw it off the tracks. He took on one of the weaker unions and it slowed him down. It set the pattern for Harris to slow down his agenda in Ontario. The OPS members di all workers a favour."

208

OPSEU ON STRIKE

Elaine Ellis, London: "We won. We got the members to believe in us. We're not going to let the government kick the shit out of us. We brought our members together." Dan Murphy, Peterborough: "The union won. Nobody believed that we could do it, including ourselves. That in itself is a victory." Dave Calvert, Ottawa: "We won in the eyes of the rest of the labour movement. It was a virgin experience. Nobody's giving us anything these days. We have to fight for everything." Will Presley, North Bay: "It was the first big political protest against the Harris government." Heather Gavin, OPSEU head office: "Those bastards tried to demoralize and crush us, but they couldn't do it." Len Hupet, Fort Frances: "When you saw the amount of support that we had on the picket lines, and what we achieved, there's no question that we're winners." During the strike, tens of thousands of civil servants became strikers, and for five weeks they stepped outside their highly controlled worlds and seized their moment. For five weeks these civil servants used their union to live a vision of what they might be. They lived a politics, they created a community, they forged a collectivity, they stared right back into the eyes of Mike Harris and all the political forces that he represents, and they said No. That's a win.

APPENDICES

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APPENDIX A

The Strike Vocabulary

A picket line captain is in charge of the picket line. Picket line duty is an assignment for a worker on strike, which usually means walking in a circle, chanting union slogans, and singing union songs for four hours, together with other strikers. It could also mean writing or delivering strike bulletins and newsletters, serving coffee and soup in the strike headquarters, making phone calls, or scrounging. Scrounging involves soliciting and collecting useful items such as firewood and food. The amount of time you do your picket line duty is recorded in a picket line roster, and this list is sent to OPSEU head office once a week to document the local's request for the next week's strike pay. The local finance committee distributes the strike pay. You get strike pay only if you do picket line duty. Strike pay is not pay. It's not even close. You can't begin to make ends meet with strike pay. Hardship relief is the union's attempt to help those in dire need. The relief fund, which provides the relief, is built up with contributions from other unions and from sympathizers in the community. It is administered by a hardship committee, which has guidelines and very limited funds. Hardship reliefs usually a loan to the striker from the union. A picket line protocol is an agreement that is negotiated between the picket line captain and a representative from the property's management. A flying picket (or squad) is a group of mobile picketers who bolster weaker picket lines. The protocol defines acceptable behaviour for a picket line, such as where to picket and the length of delay. A delay is the amount of time managers and non-strikers have to wait before going into a building. An injunction is a court document that prohibits or limits certain activities on the picket line. It has the force of law. An essential service worker is a member of the striking bargaining unit who goes to work during a strike to provide an essential service. The union and the government negotiate essential services and their levels before the strike. A union work site representative inspects workplaces during the strike to ascer-

212.

APPENDICES

tain that essential services agreements are being respected. Essential services were still being fought out at the Ontario Labour Relations Board during the strike. The Ontario Labour Relations Board (Labour Board] is a fonm of court for settling disputes between unions and employers over the rules defined in the labour law. The labour board is like a referee in a labour dispute. A scab (or strikebreaker) is a member of the bargaining unit who chooses to cross the picket line and report to work during a strike. A replacement worker is a worker from outside the bargaining unit who is recruited by management to do the work of a striking employee. A scab-herder is a scab who encourages and organizes other workers to cross the picket line. Solidarity is what workers feel and sing about when standing on the picket line, sometimes with members of other unions. Solidarity makes you feel connected to a historical tradition of unions and workers fighting for their rights.

APPENDIX B

A Week-by-Week Chronology of the Strike WEEK I MONDAY, 2.6 FEBRUARY - SUNDAY, 3 MARCH

OPSEU began the first wave of a staggered strike on Monday, 26 February, when about 25,000 members went to the picket line. Thousands of OPSEU activists had just returned from the Hamilton Days of Action. By Wednesday, all 267 locals across the province were on strike. Leah Casselman predicted a short strike. The government predicted a long one. There was no bargaining all that week. On Monday, Mike Harris blamed Bob Rae for NDP legislation giving OPSEU the right to strike. He accused striking civil servants of playing with "forbidden candy." Dave Johnson wondered if OPSEU members were being used as "guinea pigs" by the broader labour movement in its opposition to the Common Sense Revolution. The government had raised the spectre of strikebreaking even before the strike began. Leaks from the Tory convention in Hamilton hinted that the government planned to bring in five thousand replacement workers. On Monday, Dave Johnson denied that the government had such a plan. Casselman threatened to defy essential services agreements if the government used replacement workers. This threat returned to haunt Casselman later in the strike, because some members thought she meant scabs. There was a public dispute, mostly in Toronto, about the level of strikebreaking. On Thursday, the government claimed that many OPSEU members were reporting to work. OPSEU contradicted this. As expected, essential services were not going smoothly. There were 290 provincially inspected slaughterhouses temporarily closed. On Wednesday, the meat processing companies went to court to apply for a judicial review of the essential services agreement for meat inspectors. The court dismissed the application on Thursday. A fifty-car-and-truck pile-up near London on Wednesday

2,14

APPENDICES

and a fifty-car pile-up on Sunday near Barrie on snow-covered highways drew public attention to the essential services agreement on snowplowing. There was chaos in the jails, with riots, floods, and fires in prisons across the province. In the young-offender institutions there were riots at the Cecil Facer Youth Centre in Sudbury and at Bluewater Centre for Young Offenders in Goderich. Prisoners expected their regular routine to be maintained during the strike, but OPSEU argued that regular service levels would cause health and safety risks for the essential staff, which was at 34 per cent of normal staffing levels. The ministry attempted to maintain regular operations regardless, whereupon some essential guards refused to go to work and prisoners were "locked down" in their cells. On Tuesday, the government filed "illegal strike" charges at the Labour Board, but Vice-chair Robert Herman dismissed the charges. Recognizing OPSEU'S health and safety concerns, he asked the parties to negotiate a solution. The attempt to do so failed. Meanwhile, on Thursday, a court ruled that 50 per cent of the prisoners should be unlocked for 50 per cent of the time. The Labour Board released the "Herman Award" on Friday, accepting the union's position for less unlocked time for prisoners, and the arbitrator then ordered that onethird of the prisoners should be unlocked for one-third of the time. The government threatened an "airlift" of seven hundred office managers to act as prison guards. OPSEU feared employer provocation of guards and possible "illegal strike" activities. On Sunday, OPSEU held a special meeting for all Corrections local presidents in Toronto, and the guards agreed to respect the essential services agreement. Other provincial services were affected by the strike, including psychiatric hospitals, which were operating with reduced staff. The government maintained a skeleton staff of meat inspectors to ensure that there was no illegal slaughtering; this closed Z9O abattoirs. The Ontario Securities Commission and land registry offices were slowed down. There was minimum staff at water-treatment plants. Snowplowing was reduced; in the event of a snowstorm, only one lane was to be cleared on the major highways. The Wolfe Island ferry near Kingston was reduced to two runs a day. All ministry activities were either shut down or substantially reduced. Ministry of Health operations were practically brought to a halt, affecting payments to doctors. The courts were slowed down. Dispatching for the OPP and ambulances was affected. Mimicking Bank of Montreal advertisements, Casselman showed up at picket lines with a sign reading "It's not about money." The government argued that it was about money, claiming that the union's bargaining position would cost the government $1.5 billion. On Friday, OPSEU held a press conference claiming that the cost of the package would be about $494 million over three years. But it pointed out that since the government was unclear about the size of the downsizing and privatization, any calculation was really meaningless.

Appendices

215

The government told strikebreakers and managers to use the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) tunnel at Queen's Park to avoid the picket lines, and Harris announced that he might use the tunnel. OPSEU held a press conference on Sunday afternoon with pro-labour Metro Toronto Councillor Howard Moscoe, vice-chair of the TTC, asking the TTC either to allow picketing or t shut the tunnel. Moscoe dubbed the tunnel Scab Alley. There were other labour disruptions during the week. One thousand Toronto Hydro workers, members of CUPE local i, went on strike. Their strike was settled in two days. The Jockey Club locked out betting agents, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), at Woodbine racetrack in Toronto. The lockout at Great Lakes College in west-end Toronto, affecting eight members of OPSEU local 556, entered its eighth week. Federal Justice Minister Allan Rock criticized the Ontario Tories for the size of their cutbacks. WEEK Z MONDAY, 4 MARCH - SUNDAY, IO MARCH

The essential services disputes escalated during the second week. Dave Johnson, chair of Management Board, said that OPSEU was not living up to the terms of the essential services agreements on the highways and in the jails. As snow fell on roads throughout Ontario, both sides claimed to be following the terms of the agreement. Transportation Minister Al Palladini said that OPSEU was "declaring war on the people of Ontario" as the government went to the Labour Board for an expansion of the agreement. They wanted all the lanes on all the major roads plowed. Both parties agreed that sanders and salters would be sent out when there were ice conditions. However, roads would be plowed only when the snow reached twelve centimetres, as stipulated in the essential services agreement. On Tuesday some abattoirs were investigated for "uninspected" slaughtering; and on Thursday the government went to the Labour Board to have all meat inspectors declared essential. Also on Tuesday, four hundred strikers in Toronto rode the subway to TTC head office to stage a demonstration. In meeting with TTC general manager David Gunn they demanded that the TT close the tunnel at the Queen's Park subway. On Thursday, OPSEU made a presentation to a meeting of the TTC, requesting that it either allow picketing o shut down the tunnel. The TTC would do neither. Of the seven TTC commi sioners, only Metro Councillors Howard Moscoe and Joe Pantalone supported OPSEU. There were several other developments on Tuesday. John Snobelen, minister of education and training, released his "tool kit" for boards of education to reduce costs. It was a plan to reduce education costs by $400 million. A judge turned down an injunction application from the attorney general and permit-

2.16

APPENDICES

ted information picketing in front of the courthouse in London; this reversed a long-standing prohibition of any picketing in front of courthouses. At a labour support rally in Ottawa, Bob White, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, announced a $20 million line of credit to OPSEU. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, Provincial Treasurer Ernie Eves threatened back-to-work legislation. The Liberal government in Ottawa revealed its budget, with announcements for further cutbacks in programs and transfer payments to the provinces. On Wednesday, teachers' unions held a solidarity rally for the OPSEU strike at Queen's Park, where leaders of the teachers' unions denounced Snobelen's "tool kit." Led by OPSEU'S vice-president, Bill Kuehnbaum, the teachers stormed the government buildings and headed for the TTC tunnel, but they los their way in the corridors of Queen's Park. Also on Wednesday, a health and safety adjudicator, Dana Randall, expanded the Herman award to provincial jails. Tensions remained high in the jails. The costing war on the value of OPSEU'S last proposal continued all week. The government stuck to its $1.5 billion figure, and OPSEU stuck to its $494 million figure. The media saw it as posturing by both sides. On Thursday, Liberal opposition leader Lyn McLeod entered the costing debate and called for an independent fact finder to cost OPSEU'S proposal. She also called for independent arbitration to settle the collective-bargaining dispute. On Thursday, strikers received their last regular full paycheque. Dave Johnson announced that the government was saving $10 million a day from the strike. Also on Thursday, the arts community held a support rally for the strike at the Ministry of Culture's head office. Sarah Policy of Anne of Green Gables emceed the event. On Thursday and Friday, a bogus OPSEU pamphlet appeared at picket lines threatening union retaliation and financial punishment against scabs. Such action would be a violation of the labour law, and on Friday OPSEU publicly disassociated itself from the pamphlet. Dave Johnson threatened discipline for strikers who intimidated strikebreakers. He also threatened to heat up the scab battle by releasing numbers of OPSEU members crossing the picket line. On Thursday, OPSEU picketed the Board of Trade where Harris was giving an address for International Women's Week. On Friday, women's groups staged a solidarity rally for strikers at the office of the Ontario Women's Directorate. On Saturday, Leah Casselman gave the keynote address at the annual International Women's Day rally at Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. OPSEU strikers led the march. During the week, the second-largest bargaining unit in the Ontario Public Service, AMAPCEO, negotiated an "employment stability" deal with the Ontario government. AMAPCEO had been bargaining since October. In a highly unusu-

Appendices

2.17

al move, its members were asked to ratify only that language in their first collective agreement, while much of the rest of their collective agreement remained unnegotiated. OPSEU members were on the picket line mainly because of "employment stability" issues. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) held their annual meetings in Toronto. Both conventions declared their opposition to the Harris cutbacks, especially Snobelen's "tool kit." Both conventions passed the hat for donations to the OPSEU strikers, and on the weekend OSSTF and OECTA delegates joined our picket lines. At the end of the week, the courts accepted the principle of "delay" on picket lines at the Ministry of Transportation in Kapuskasing and at the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre in Penetang. Throughout the remainder of the strike, the principle of "delay" was accepted in protocols and injunctions. Previously, the courts had not recognized the right of picket lines to delay entry into the struck work site. To a huge cheer at a Queen's Park rally on Friday, Casselman announced that OPSEU and the government were returning to the negotiating table. The mediator had called them back. Dave Johnson said that the government still had no money. WEEK 3 MONDAY, II MARCH - SUNDAY, 17 MARCH Early in the week, the government made three moves on its "employment stability" position: the short-term layoff was dropped altogether; a qualified employee would be permitted to trade his or her job with a laid-off worker to receive the severance package; and the second bump was now permitted with no minimum service requirement. Johnson described the move as a way to "kick-start" the bargaining. He announced the change in the government's position at a press conference. Casselman upbraided Johnson for negotiating in public. His practice of bargaining in public was an issue for the remainder of the strike, and the mediators appealed for a news blackout on bargaining. Johnson called the "employment stability" deal with AMAPCEO a blueprint for a deal with OPSEU. "I'm hoping that OPSEU will see the fiscal reality that AMAPCEO saw," he said. Later in the week the talks moved to the issue of successor rights. On Sunday, 17 March, the two sides met face-to-face at the bargaining table for the first time since 4 February. On Monday, the Steelworkers joined OPSEU pickets in an occupation of the Queen's Park tunnel. On Tuesday, teachers on their March break joined OPSEU pickets in a second occupation of the tunnel. On Tuesday afternoon, the TT and the government applied for injunctions to ban all picketing on each side of the tunnel entrance, but that evening the court ruled that OPSEU had the right

Zl8

APPENDICES

to picket on either side with a maximum of eight pickets. On Thursday, OPSEU picketed the Dundas subway station to confront scabs going to work at the Atrium, an adjoining office tower. The TTC filed contempt charges against OPSEU in the afternoon and asked for an injunction prohibiting picketing at all subway stations. In the evening, the courts permitted OPSEU pickets at all sixtyseven subway stops, each with a maximum of eight pickets. On Tuesday, the third Ontario Federation of Labour day of action is announced for 19 April in Kitchener/Waterloo. Also on Tuesday, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union gave their union a strike mandate in their dispute with the TTC. They can strike as early as 31 March. Contrary to previous denials, the government has been counting strikebreakers, and on Wednesday Johnson announced that 5,000 scabs were reporting to work. On Friday, that figure was increased to 5,100. The government claimed that it had saved $162. million from the first seventeen days of the strike. On Thursday, the Labour Board ruled that there were to be no changes in the essential services agreement for meat inspectors between OPSEU and the government. The battle in Corrections continued. The government continued to file injunction applications against Corrections picket lines. On 14 March Premier Mike Harris delivered donuts to a picket line in North Bay, and picket captain Kelly Loxton turned them down. The NDP leadership race to replace Bob Rae was underway. Howard Hampton, Frances Lankin, Peter Kormos, and Tony Silipo were contenders. They debated in Windsor late in the week. WEEK 4 MONDAY, I 8 MARCH - SUNDAY, 2.4 MARCH The provincial parliament began its spring session on Monday afternoon. OPSEU had organized a demonstration and pickets at Queen's Park, and about five thousand civil servants and supporters showed up early in the morning. Trouble broke out at 11:30 AM when the riot squad of the Ontario Provincia Police used violence to escort Tory MPPS through the picket lines. Stephen Giles, a probation officer with the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services, was beaten into near unconsciousness. Four other people were hurt too. A second incident occurred at about i PM when the OPP riot squad agai used violence to escort Tory MPPS into the Queen's Park complex. The Monday parliamentary session was dominated by discussion on the behaviour of the OPP and the OPSEU strike. The news of the violence was carried not only across Ontario but across the world. It was the turning point of the strike. Al McLean, speaker of the house, had applied for an injunction at 9 AM. At 6 PM, five hour after the end of the demonstration, the court ruled that OPSEU had the right to picket but did not have the right to delay or block MPPS.

Appendices

219

On Tuesday, opposition MPPS asked for an inquiry into the events of Monday, and Stephen Giles held a press conference denouncing the violence of the OPP riot squad. Giles reaffirmed that he had been peaceably picketing and not blocking anybody when the OPP came storming out of the building. Paul Walter, president of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Association, told the press that he had overheard OPP officers bragging about their "wack 'em and stack 'em" strategy. On Wednesday Gord Wilson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, sent a provocative letter to Jay Hope, the OPP inspector who had led the riot squad on Monday. Later in the week, the government agreed to an independent investigation into Monday's riot at Queen's Park. Also on Tuesday, AMAPCEO members ratified their "employment stability" language by a vote of 88 per cent. As well, Lee's Poultry in Toronto was charged with illegal slaughtering. Thirty livestock transporters drove around Queen's Park protesting the essential services agreement. York Region announced that it was planning to hire replacement meat inspectors. On Wednesday, OPSEU went to court to block the hiring of replacement meat inspectors by municipalities. Dave Johnson announced that there were 5,400 OPSEU members reporting to work. Talks continued all week. The mediatorimposed blackout was not totally effective; we read in the newspapers how the talks had moved to bumping language by the end of the week. WEEK 5 MONDAY, 2.5 MARCH - SUNDAY, 31 MARCH

On Monday, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Metro Toronto Labour Council led a demonstration of about three thousand to the office of the solicitor general, Bob Runciman, the minister responsible for the OPP. We demanded his resignation. There was increasing chaos in correctional facilities in this final week of the strike. On Monday, guards at eight jails refused to report for essential services work. They claimed that the work was dangerous because there were not enough staff. On Tuesday, guards at eleven prisons called in sick. The Corrections ministry was very close to using the "airlift" of seven hundred managers into the prisons. The ministry brought twenty-one "illegal strike" applications to the Labour Board in this week alone. The strike was drawing to a close. The central deal was negotiated on Wednesday night, and Leah Casselman announced the settlement at a Queen's Park rally on Thursday. But on Thursday night the talks were stopped by OPSEU after the government tabled a return-to-work protocol that permitted employer reprisals for behaviour during the strike. OPSEU considered defying the essential services agreement, but at Casselman's request, Runciman intervened. At a cabinet meeting on Friday morning, he argued for the removal of

2,2.0

APPENDICES

the reprisals in the return-to-work agreement, and the cabinet agreed. The six unit tables then negotiated rollovers of the existing contracts dealing with compensation issues. The new collective agreements were ratified by 95 per cent of 3 5,000 voting OPSEU members on Sunday, 31 March. They returned to work on Monday, i April. At many locations they marched into work singing "Solidarity Forever."

APPENDIX C

OPSEU Strike: Financial Statistics

Total strike pay Benefits premiums Essential services dues

$16,506,313 3,958,122 9,894,926 LOANS FROM OTHER U N I O N S

Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Brewery, General, and Professional Workers Union British Columbia Government Employees' Union Canadian Auto Workers Union Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers Canadian Union of Postal Workers Canadian Union of Public Employees Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Health Sciences Association of British Columbia Manitoba Government Employees' Union Newfoundland Association of Public Employees Nova Scotia Government Employees Union Ontario Liquor Boards Employees' Union Prince Edward Island Union of Public Sector Employees Public Service Alliance of Canada Saskatchewan Government Employees' Union United Steelworkers of America United Food and Commercial Workers

$ 700,000 100,000 1,000,000 2,000,000 100,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 1,000,000 255,000 650,000 800,000 250,000 50,000 170,000 3,000,000 800,000 2,000,000 1,000,000

APPENDIX D

Results of the Three OPSEU Polls of the Membership Poll of July 1995 (sample of 400) Very dissatisfied 11.8%

Very satisfied 8.3%

Satisfied 54.3%

Dissatisfied 22.5%

Yes

No

83.8%

15.8%

Don't know/ Other 0.4%

Yes

No

Some do

58.0%

21.5%

-I T QO/ 1Z.O /o

Don't know/ Other 7.7%

Job security 69.6%

Wages 7.8%

Benefits 3.3%

Pensions 2 .0OO//o

Other 16.5%

Tories Vote in 1995 election 21.8%

Liberals 14.7%

NDP

O^er

21.0%

2.0%

None/ Refused 40.5%

Strongly agree Agreement with CSR 6.3%

Agree 29.2%

Disagree 29.5%

Strongly disagree 22.5%

Other 12.5%

Very likely Will you be laid off? 11.5%

Likely 31.3%

Not likely 33.8%

No? at all

Very likely 7.5%

Likely 23.0%

Not likely 34.3%

' No? at all

Satisfaction with

No

answer 3.1%

OPSEU

Aware of negotiations Aware of OPS right to strike Most important issue

Will you be privatized?

16.5%

33.3%

DonY know/ Other 6.9% Don't know/ Other 1.9%

Appendices

2,2,3

Poll of July 1995 (sample of 400) (continued)

Importance of maintaining joboffer guarantee Importance of maintaining jobsurplus process Would you vote for strike for jobsecurity language? Is your job essential?

Not at all 2.3%

Important 19.6%

Extremely important 77.5%

Don't know 0.6%

Not at all 2 .3CO//o

Important 20.6%

Extremely important 76.0%

Don't know 0.6%

Very likely 20.8%

Likely 31.5%

Not likely 17.3%

Yes 53.5%

No 42.0%

Don't know/ Refused 4.5%

24.3%

Don't know/ Other 6.1%

No answer 2.2%

No* at all

Poll of October 1995 (sample of 400) Very satisfied 9.8%

Satisfied 50.5%

Dissatisfied 26.2%

Very dissatisfied 11.3%

Yes 61.5%

No 23.5%

Some do 7.5%

Don't know/ Other 7.5%

Strongly agree 3.8%

Agree 24.0%

Disagree 26.8%

Strongly disagree 42.3%

Other 3.1%

Very likely 18.5%

Likely 47.3%

Not likely 23.5%

No* at all 5.0%

Don't know/ Other 5.7%

Very likely Will you privatized? 19.5%

Likely 30.3%

Not likely

No* at all 14.7%

Don'* know/ Other 3.7%

Very likely 25.5%

Likely 27.3%

Satisfaction with OPSEU

Awareness of OPS right to strike Agreement with CSR

Will you be laid off? 1

Would you vote for a strike for job security language?2

31 QO/ Jl.O /o

No* likely "> Z QO/ Zj.o /o

Dow3* know/ No* at all Other 18.5% 2.9%

ZZ4

APPENDICES

Poll of October 1995 (sample of 400) (continued) Willingness to take the following action: wear a button supporting the bargaining team do lunchtime information picket extend coffee break to discuss bargaining issues fax, phone or write to Dave Johnson. have a day of reflection at work participate in a one-day provincewide work stoppage

Yes 82.0% 61.5 71.0 78.8 48.3 56.3

No 13.8% 29.8 25.3 15.8 44.0 32.3

^he original question assumed a 13,000 layoff. For those who did not think it was likely that they would be laid off, the question was asked again with an assumption of 20,000; 36% of this group then changed their answer to "Likely." 2 After it was pointed out that in view of Bill 7, the only real job protection was the collective agreement, those who had replied "Not likely" were asked the question again, and 24.3% of them changed their answer to "Likely."

Poll of December 1995 (sample of 800) Is your job essential?

Yes 42.8%

No 49.6%

Agreement with CSR

Strongly agree 3.3%

Agree 28.5%

Don't know/Refused 7.6% Disagree 28.8%

Strongly disagree 36.3%

Other 3.1%

Would you vote for strike: Very likely for job-security provisions? 22.5% to restore successor rights? 35.4 for the job-offer guarantee? 26.4 for seniority and bumping? 29.1 to stop the short-term layoff? 36.9 for retraining rights? 29.0 for severance? 20.8 over benefits? 21.5 over pensions? 41.1 over the new classification 30.8 system? Considering all of the above, will you vote for a strike? 30.1%

Likely 28.1% 32.1 34.3 28.0 27.1 29.6 27.3 29.6 29.9 32.5 32.4%

Not likely Not at all 21.0% 25.5% 13.8 16.0 16.0 20.8 14.4 26.4 13.6 19.8 15.5 24.1 19.9 28.9 16.9 29.8 10.3 16.4 13.5 21.6 21.6%

12.9%

Don't know/ Other 2.9% 2.7 2.5 2.1 2.6 1.8 3.1 2.2 2.3 1.6

3.0%

APPENDIX E

List of People Interviewed

The position indicated is the position held by the person during the strike. Adams, Richard, local 550, Toronto. Albrecht, Jim, Executive Board member, Region 2, Guelph Correctional Centre Allingham, Rosemarie, president, local 502, Toronto Anderson, Gavin, president, local 444, Kingston Anderson, Heather, vice-president, local 432, Kingston Anger, Evelyn, president, local 134, Windsor Angus, Noreen, Executive Board member, Region 6, Sault Ste Marie Anwyll, Smokey, Executive Board member, Region i, London Bekerman, Andre, senior staff negotiator, OPSEU Belcastro, Nella, editor, local 468 newsletter, Kingston Bergman, Ruth, former Executive Board member, local 702, Kenora Bilodeau, Paul, strike organizer; author, OPSEU strike manual Bobb, Yvonne, former president, Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; former chair, OPS Network for Racial Minorities; former president, local 520, Toronto Boutilier, Judy, president, local 430, Kingston Boutros, Violette, president, local 568, Toronto Bragaglia, Dominic, president, local 135, Windsor Jail Brown, Sue, president, local 636, North Bay Psychiatric Hospital Brunet, Pierre, president, local 3 62, Peterborough Bull, Diane, OPSEU staff negotiator Calvert, David, president, local 454, Ottawa Campbell, Wayne, former Executive Board member; local 625, North Bay Campeau, Yvette, vice-president/treasurer, local 140, Windsor Carlson, Maureen, president, local 339, Peterborough provincial public health laboratory

226

APPENDICES

Carneiro, Tony, vice-president, local 599, Toronto Casselman, Leah, president, OPSEU Chiro, Don, negotiator, Ontario government Churchill, Patricia, vice-president, local 502., Toronto Clift, Joan, steward, local 453, Cornwall Colbourne, Michael, steward, local 634, North Bay; head of North Bay scrounge committee Collom, Dennis, technical services member, OPSEU central negotiating team Conroy, Harriet, local 630; Sudbury strike committee Coombs, Barbara, OPSEU vice-president, Region 7, Thunder Bay Crabtree, Maureen, president, local 446, Ottawa Cross, Bill, vice-president, local 430, Kingston Culkeen, Mike, steward, local 308, Peterborough; former Executive Board member, Region 3 Gushing, James, president, local 542, North York Dacanay, Cesar, president, local 5 24, Toronto Doig, Pam, staff organizer, OPSEU strike and days of action Downey, Terry, vice-president, local 568, Toronto; OPSEU Provincial Women's Committee Eady, Don, labour lawyer, Cowling Strathy Henderson Egan, Carolyn, president, local 8300, United Steelworkers of America, Toronto Elliot, Ron, OPSEU vice-president, Region i, London Ellis, Elaine, president, local 102, London; OPSEU Administrative bargaining team; co-chair, London Day of Action Fairley, Rob, former president, CUPE local i, Toronto Hydro Faulknor, Ed, chair, Central Employer Relations Committee; president, local 202, Hamilton FitzRandolph, Katie, communications officer, OPSEU Frise, Beth, president, local 533, Toronto Gallupe, Diane, president, local 669, North Bay Gannage, Gary, president, AMAPCEO Gardner, Paul, director, Labour Manager Services, Ministry of Labour; mediator Caspar, Anne, president, local 133, Windsor Gates, Joan, OPSEU vice-president, Region 3; president, local 331, Whitby Psychiatric Hospital Gavin, Heather, executive assistant to the president of OPSEU George, Stephen, steward, local 532, Toronto Gibson, Teenie, president, local 5100, Toronto Giles, Stephen, steward, local 551, Toronto Gillespie, Marcia, benefits counsellor, OPSEU

Appendices 2,2,7 Gosal, Jhalman, president, local 517, Metro West Detention Centre, Toronto; OPSEU Provincial Human Rights Committee Gregoire, John, local 407, Ottawa Grimes, Tom, president, local 140, Windsor Hannah, Tim, vice-president, local 341, Millbrook Correctional Centre Hansen, Joyce, OPSEU staff negotiator Harcourt, Twyla, local 339, Peterborough provincial public health laboratory Haynes, Cindy, vice-president, local 108, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, London Hebdon, Bob, Industrial Relations, Cornell University; former researcher, OPSEU Heron, Craig, labour historian, York University Hoag, Gary, coordinator, downtown cluster, Toronto Howes, Bill, staff organizer, Toronto Labour Council Huarde, Gloria, picket captain, local 331, Whitby Psychiatric Hospital Hughes, Carol, president, local 604, Elliot Lake Huhtala, Karen, local 618, Cecil Facer Youth Centre; Sudbury strike committee Huitema, Elizabeth, Office Administration member, OPSEU central negotiating team Huot, John, former president, local 562,, Toronto Hupet, Len, Executive Board member, Region 7, Fort Frances Ireson, Wayne, president, local 2.05, Hamilton; OPSEU Administrative bargaining team Jennings, Anne, steward, local 468, Kingston Jordan, Cheryl, local 107, London Jordan, Don, local 102,, London Khan, Tina, steward, local 534, Toronto Kuehnbaum, Bill vice-president/treasurer, OPSEU Langois, Rejean, president, local 713, Thunder Bay Lankin, Frances, MPP, Beaches-Woodbine, former chair, Management Board Secretariat; former OPSEU negotiator Laporte, Mike, steward, local 531, Queen Street Mental Health Centre, Toronto Larcher, Richard, president, local 62,9, Sudbury Lauzon, Steve, president, local 618, Cecil Facer Youth Centre, Sudbury Lawder, Roy, president, local 341, Millbrook Correctional Centre Lawrence, Gary, president, local 504, Toronto Leeb, Gavin, strike organizer, Toronto Lehr, Clarence, president, local 2.04, Hamilton Lowry, Brian, president, local 406, Ottawa Loxton, Kelly, picket captain, local 635, North Bay McArthur, Robin, Canadian director, RWDSU of the UFCW, Sudbury

2.2.8

APPENDICES

McCormack, Judith, former chair, Ontario Labour Relations Board; labour lawyer, Sack Goldblatt Mitchell McGrath, John, journalist, CBC McGregor, Larry, president, local 617, Sudbury jail McKnight, Dan, president, local 2,70, St Catharines McPhee, Agatha, coordinator, Accounting Services, OPSEU Marion, Judith, editor, strike newsletter, local 270, St Catharines Martin, Marilou, Executive Board member, Region 5, Toronto Martin, Marjorie, president, local 203, Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital Mather, John, mediator, Ministry of Labour Mayes, Brian, staff negotiator, OPSEU Michaud, Paul, vice-president, local 562, Toronto Miller, Bente, steward, local 432, Kingston Miller, Derek, Executive Board member, Region 5, Toronto Miller, Mitch, steward, local 727, Dryden Mitchell, Martin, steward, local 203, Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital Murphy, Dan, Corrections member, OPSEU central negotiating team Muscat, Sergeant Jim, industrial liaison section of Community Policing, Metropolitan Toronto Police Nield, Steve, president, local 123, Sarnia Noad, Sandra, president, local 101, London O'Brien, John, chair, OPSEU central negotiating team Oliver, Mike, OPSEU vice-president, Region 4, Cornwall Pesce, Angelo, chief negotiator, Ontario government Piccini, Carol, local 502, Toronto Pilgrim, Rod, president, local 453, Cornwall Powell, Annemarie, steward, local 339, Peterborough provincial public health laboratory Presley, Will, OPSEU vice-president, Region 6, North Bay Pridham, Nancy, member, OPSEU me negotiating team; steward, local 531, Queen Street Mental Health Centre, Toronto Prince, Karan, president, local 449, Renfrew Pryor, Faye, picket captain, local 468, Kingston Retallick, Rena, local 339, Peterborough provincial public health laboratory Roach-Ferguson, Lynda, OPSEU staff representative; Queen's Park SACG, Toronto Rooney, Frank, director, OPSEU communications department Rudka, Sally, president, local 340, Oshawa Santos, Sal, president, local 516, Toronto Schenk, Chris, director of research, Ontario Federation of Labour Shaul, Gary, president, local 503, Toronto; coordinator, Queen's Park cluster Shearer, Pat, president, local 736, Thunder Bay Slee, Peter, OPSEU staff representative, Sudbury

Appendices

229

Smeaton, Malcolm, manager, the Ontario government's Corporate Strike Response Team Smith, Mary Sue, president, local 422,, Ottawa Spadafora, Rick, local 502, Toronto Stinson, Terry, me member, OPSEU central negotiating team Stohr, Michael, president, local 547, Thistletown Regional Centre, Toronto Sunstrum, Gregg, soup server; essential services worker, St Catharines Taylor, Darryl, president, local 649, Timmins Taylor, George, steward, local 446, Ottawa Taylor, Ken, vice-president, local 534, Toronto Taylor, Norma, Executive Board member, Region 4, Ottawa Thompson, Nancy, picket captain, local 587, Toronto Thomson, Marie, Executive Board member, Region i, Windsor Todd, Andy, chief negotiator, OPSEU Toivonen, Bev, Executive Board member, Region 3, Peterborough Torney, Linda, president, Toronto and York Region Labour Council Turk, James, director of education, Ontario Federation of Labour; co-chair, Ontario Coalition for Social Justice Upshaw, Fred, former president, OPSEU Vanier, Virgery, OPSEU staff representative, London Virgo, Ross, coordinator of communications, Correctional Services Division, Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services Visintin, Bea, president, local 468, Kingston Walkom, Tom, journalist, Toronto Star Wall, Maureen, president, local 562, Toronto Watkins, Mel, economist, University of Toronto Weisleder, Barry, Executive Board member, Region 5, Toronto Whitmore, Eileen, picket captain, local 436, Rideau Regional Centre, Smiths Falls Williams, Dan, Steward, local 313, Barrie Williams, Peggy, OPSEU supporter Wilson, Gord, president, Ontario Federation of Labour Wrightly, Norma, chief steward, local 436, Rideau Regional Centre, Smiths Falls Zafiriadis, Ifi, picket captain, local 503, Toronto

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Notes

INTRODUCTION

1 Personal statements throughout the book are drawn from the many interviews I conducted while researching and preparing this work. For a list of those interviewed, see appendix E. 2 "And it is true that in comparative terms, the Conservatives secured only a relatively weak majority government; their 63.1 per cent of legislative seats gave them the fifth-lowest showing of the twelve majority governments from 1943 to 1995 and the fourth lowest showing of the nine Tory majority governments formed in the postwar period. In 'sweep' terms, there is little that is remarkable about the Conservative victory. It was, however, at least within the party, perceived to be much more than just another election" (Woolstencroft, "Reclaiming the Pink Palace," 385). 3 This commemorates an April 1872. strike of typographical workers in Toronto. Strikers and their supporters maintained a "contemptuous silence" when marching past the office of the Globe. They were on strike for a nine-hour day. 4 CITY-TV news, 19 March 1996. 5 Neoconservatism is sometimes referred to as neoliberalism. This blurs the discussion. Neoconservatism, by any other name, is neoconservatism. From OPSEU'S point of view, it means lower wages, fewer benefits, fewer jobs, and a weaker public sector. 6 This was the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA) 1993, which was proclaimed into law in February 1994. CHAPTER ONE

i Loreto, "Making and Implementing the Decisions," 94. z The OPS also transfers payments to private-sector companies that per-

232. NOTES TO PAGES 17-34

3 4 5

6

7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

form government work. In 1992-93,1 worked on a joint study by OPSEU and the Management Board of Cabinet on private-sector contracts. The study identified 29,589 contracts issued by the Ontario government between April 1990 and October 1992, worth over $866 million. The report, which was entitled Contracting Out in the Ontario Public Service, was released in April 1993. By then, privatization was well under way. Panitch and Swartz, The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms, 19 Heron, The Canadian Labour Movement, 75-6 Ontario public-sector unions vented their anger against the Social Contract of the Rae government because we saw it as an attack on freely bargained collective agreements. I use the term "public" liberally here. In this context it can mean people or businesses. Both pay taxes and both receive services from the public sector. An important political question of our times is the ratio of payments and benefits for people and business. It is a class question, a question of distribution. Roberts, Wayne, Don't Call Me Servant, 38-9 Government of Ontario, Civil Service Commission Annual Report, 1950-51, 1972-73. Roberts, Don't Call Me Servant, 95 Martin Mittelstaedt, and James Rusk, "Harris Takes Hard Line with Union," Globe and Mail, 27 February 1996. Roberts, Don't Call Me Servant, 170-3. There were mixed signals here. The Rae government tabled Bill 48, the Social Contract Act, which limited collective bargaining rights, the same day as it tabled Bill 49, which gave us the right to strike. For a fuller discussion on the politics of collective bargaining rights, particularly in the public sector, see Panitch and Swartz, The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms. Jack Lakey, "900 Assessors Win Retroactive Pay increases of 8.8 per cent," Toronto Star, 31 August 1995. OPSEU, OPSEU News, 9 March 1994. OPSEU, OPSEU News, 27 April 1994, i. CHAPTER TWO

1 About a year after the Harris government was elected, it published a list of all public-sector employees who made more than $100,000 a year. 2 Tanguay, "Not in Ontario," 22 3 Daniel Girard, "NDP Labour Legislation to Go with Goal of Creatin Jobs," Toronto Star, 28 September 1995. 4 Stanford, "Permanent Recession," 113-15.

Notes to pages 36-47 233 5 Ontario Federation of Labour, Organizing in a Cold Climate, which quoted from the Labour and Household Surveys Analysis of Statistics Canada, 1997. 6 Rae, From Protest To Power, 138 7 Moscovitch, "Social Assistance in the New Ontario," 82 8 Margaret Philip, "Welfare Benefits Cut by zi.6%," Globe and Mail, 22 July 1995. 9 Kelly Toughill, "Deeper Cuts Likely to Top $1.5 billion," Toronto Star, 2.1 July 1995. 10 Daniel Girard, "Tories to Scrap NDP Equity Law," Toronto Star, 2.0 July 1995. 11 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Workplace Safety Agency Closing," Globe and Mail, 24 August 1995. 12 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Rookie Cabinet Minister Roasted by His Own Comments," Globe and Mail, 5 October 1995. 13 Lisa Wright, "I've Eaten My Share of Bologna, Harris Says," Toronto Star, 22 October 1995. 14 Richard Brennan, 'No Bologna for Harris, His Dad Says," Toronto Star, 24 October 1995. 15 Ibid. 16 Coincidentally, the lockout ended on the same day the OPS strike ended, 31 March 1996. The employees achieved little. Basically, they accepted the employer's offer which they had rejected in December. 17 Government of Ontario, Instant Topical, 29 November 1995, i. 18 Submission on Bill 26 by the Ontario Federation of Labour, 19 January 1996. CHAPTER THREE

1 Richard Brennan, "Public Servants May Lose Union Rights," Windsor Star, 14 October 1995. 2 Rae Days were the unpaid days off taken by public-sector workers during the three-year Social Contract period. 3 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Ontario Tories Slash Spending by $1.9 billion," Globe and Mail, 22 July 1995. 4 William Walker, "Civil Servants to Get Surplus Notices This Fall," Toronto Star, 26 July 1995. 5 Daniel Girard, "3,500 to Be Axed from the Civil Service," Toronto Star, 28 November 1995. 6 Government of Ontario, Instant Topical, 29 November 1995. 7 Ibid., 4 October 1995. 8 There are three early retirement packages with unreduced pensions in the Ontario Public Service: factor 80, factor 90, and 60/20. Eligibility for fac-

234

9 10 11 12 13

NOTES TO PAGES 47-60

tor 80 occurs when your age and years of service add up to 80. It has a three-month window. If you don't take it during the window, you lose it. Eligibility for factor 90 occurs when age and years of service add up to 90. Eligibility for 60/20 occurs when you turn 60 and have at least 20 years of service. Factors 90 and 60/20 are statutory and do not have windows. Thomas Claridge, "Pension Exemption Order Scrapped," Globe and Mail, 21 December 1995. "Pension Theft," article in OPSEU Fax, 20 December 1995 H.J. Glasbeek, "How the Harris Government Undermines OPSEU," Globe and Mail, n March 1996. Thomas Walkom, "Aggressive Harris Would Rather Fight than Negotiate," Toronto Star, 27 February 1996. Martin Mittelstaedt and James Rusk, "Harris Takes Hard Line With Union," Globe and Mail, 27 February 1996. CHAPTER F O U R

1 William Walker, "Tax Cut Still a Go Harris Promises," Toronto Star, 25 February 1996. 2 Laurie Monsebraaten, "Day-care Cuts Called an Attack on Children," Toronto Star, 21 July 1995. 3 James Rusk, "Tories Undeterred by Labour Protest," Globe and Mail, 26 February 1995. 4 Christina Blizzard, "Time for the Tories to Start Listening," Toronto Sun, 25 February 1995. 5 John Ibbotson, Promised Land, 143. 6 Turk, "Days of Action," 167. 7 Bill 136 was legislation tabled by the government in the spring of 1997 that would have seriously weakened public-sector collective-bargaining rights. The government watered down some of its most controversial features in September in response to the threats of a province-wide general strike. 8 Laurie Monsebraaten, "Day-care Cuts Called an Attack on Children," Toronto Star, 21 July 1995. 9 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Protest Marks Throne Speech," Globe and Mail, 28 September 1995. 10 Clarke, "Fighting to Win," 159. 11 Turk, "Days of Action," 167. 12 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Hearings on Omnibus Bill Turn Stormy Outside Toronto," Globe and Mail, 9 January 1996. 13 Turk, "Days of Action," 171. 14 Joe Belanger, "Five Charged for Sit-in at Harris's Office," North Bay Nugget, 27 January 1996.

Notes to pages 60-9 235 15 Peter Edwards, "Queen's Park Protesters Denounce Cuts, Defy Police," Toronto Star, 8 February 1996. 16 Thomas Claridge, "Protesters Face Obscure Law," Globe and Mail, 9 February 1997. 17 Tracey Tyler, "Top Judges Put Harnick in Tough Spot," Toronto Star, 2.4 January 1996. 18 James Rusk, "Don't Get into a Strike, Police Warn Tories," Globe and Mail, 16 February 1996. 19 Jack Lakey, "Labor Socks Steel City," Toronto Star, 24 February 1996. 20 Jack Lakey, "Day 2: Labor Turns up Heat," Toronto Star, 25 February 1996. CHAPTER FIVE

1 Kelly Toughill, "Layoff Provisions Key to Standoff," Toronto Star, 25 February 1996. 2 The terms "contract" and "collective agreement" mean the same thing in the text. 3 There are other bargaining agents representing distinct occupations in the OPS: the Professional Engineers of the Government of Ontario, which represents engineers and architects; the Association of Management, Administration, and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO), which represents higher-level office workers and policy analysts; the Association of Ontario Physicians and Dentists in Public Service, which represents doctors and dentists. 4 The dues rate was increased by 0.2% (from 1.325% to 1.525%) from July 1996 until June 1998 (when it returned to 1.325%) in order to pay back the strike debt to other unions. This was a special dues levy passed by the 1996 convention and ratified by locals. 5 COLA is cost-of-living allowance, inflation protection. 6 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Tory Job-Slashing Plans Face Major Roadblock," Globe and Mail, 8 July 1995. 7 This was the origin of the job-security language in the collective agreement which the Harris Tories found so objectionable. The NDP wanted to downsize slowly with as few casualties as possible, whereas Harris was in a rush. We became aware that the job-security language was in trouble very early in Harris's term of office. In July 1995 Dave Johnson said, "Had there been a Progressive Conservative government, there may well have been a different contract" (Martin Mittelstaedt, Globe and Mail, 8 July 1995). 8 Government of Ontario, Civil Service Commission Annual Report, 1991-92, 1994-95. 9 In fiscal year 1991-92 the staff strength report went from using head

236

10

11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18 19 20

21

NOTES TO PAGES 69-79

counts to full-time equivalents (FTES). This makes comparisons a bit difficult. In the above case, both figures are in FTES. Social Contract negotiations were divided into seven sectors: OPS, municipalities, health, community services, schools, colleges and universities, and agencies, boards, and commissions. Each sector had a savings target. OPSEU, OPSEU News, 9 March 1994. Statutes of Ontario, The Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, 1993, s. 30, ch. 38, 14. Schedule A, point 22, "Application under Section 91 of the Act before the OLRB" (form A-35), i June 1995. OPSEU, Table Talk, 6 October 1995. Government of Ontario, Instant Topical, 4 October 1995. In the next paragraph are these reassuring words for OPS employees. "There are now - and will continue to be - fewer government jobs to fill. Therefore, the likelihood of being redeployed [for surplus employees] in the government is diminishing." A bump occurs when a laid-off employee displaces another employee with less seniority. The bumper must be able to do the work of the bumped employer. The bumped employee is then laid off. In the old contract there were no limits to the number of bumps. H.J. Glasbeek, "How the Harris Government Undermines OPSEU," Globe and Mail, n March 1996. Thomas Walkom, "Aggressive Harris Would Rather Fight than Negotiate," Toronto Star, 27 February 1996. OPSEU, OPSEU fax, 23 November 1995. There must be a strike vote of all dues payers before a strike. The membership gets to vote on the employer's offer as well. At times, there are two separate votes. With two votes, it is possible for the membership to turn down the employer's offer in the contract vote and then vote No for a strike mandate. This happened in college bargaining in the late 19805. It puts the union in a very weak position. Clearly, we preferred one vote, in which rejection of the employer's offer would give the union a strike mandate. A no-board report is issued by a mediator after an unsuccessful conciliation effort. Either side can ask for it. A strike or lockout can occur sixteen days later. In the rule book, the employer has the right to call for a vote on its "best offer." Under the terms of the early December Labour Board order, OPSEU could ask for the employer's best offer upon application for a no-board. The government has forty-eight hours to produce. The membership then votes within two weeks. The term "no-board" refers to the report of the mediator to the Ministry of Labour which asserts that the sides are too far apart and recommends against the establishment of a conciliation board to complete an agreement.

Notes to pages 81-134 2.37 zz OPSEU, OPSEU fax, 7 February 1996. Z3 "The Real Issue Is Job Security," Globe and Mail, zj February 1996. CHAPTER six i OPSEU, OPSEU fax, zj September 1995. z Table Talk is the publication of OPSEU'S collective-bargaining department. 3 Probably the best description and expression of the organizing model is La Botz's A Troublemaker's Handbook. 4 The 1996 OPSEU convention reduced the number to three Executive Board members per region. 5 James Rusk, "OPSEU in Position to Strike," Globe and Mail, 19 February 1996. CHAPTER SEVEN

i OPSEU, OPSEU fax, 18 February 1996. z James Rusk, "OPSEU in Position to Strike," Globe and Mail, 19 February 1996. 3 Government of Ontario, At the Table, 19 February 1996. 4 Kelly Toughill, "Public Servants to Strike Monday," Toronto Star, Z3 February 1996. 5 This is part of the terms of the Rand formula. 6 William Walker, "Tory Strike Plan Revealed," Toronto Star, 2,5 February 1996. 7 Martin Mittelstaedt, "z5,000 Civil Servants Set To Strike," Globe and Mail, z6 February 1996) Ai 8 Martin Mittelstaedt, "OPSEU Plans Selective Strikes," Globe and Mail, Z3 February 1996. 9 Turk, "Days of Action," 170-1 10 Jack Lakey, "Labor Socks Steel City," Toronto Star, Z4 February 1996. 11 Jack Lakey, "Day z: Labour Turns up Heat," Toronto Star, zj February 1996. iz Marti Mittelstaedt, and James Rusk, "Harris Takes Hard Line with Union," Globe and Mail, zj February 1996. 13 Martin Mittelstaedt, "OPSEU Plans Selective Strikes," Globe and Mail, Z3 February 1996. CHAPTER EIGHT

i See below, 177. z A scab herder encourages and organizes other workers to cross a picket line.

238

NOTES TO PAGES 163-96 CHAPTER TEN

i

When I started doing research for this study, Paul Bilodeau of OPSEU'S campaigns department lent me four boxes of clippings on the OPSEU strike, containing thousands of articles from newspapers right across Canada. Mary Diamond, a member of my local, videotaped the news every morning and evening of the strike, and she lent me her four VHS tapes. CHAPTER ELEVEN

1 Bull, "An IR Systems Framework Analysis of Essential Service Bargaining Outcomes." 2 James Rusk, "Mental Patients Feel Sting of Strike," Globe and Mail, 12 March 1996. 3 James Rusk, "Talks Clear Way for Road Maintenance," Globe and Mail, 5 March 1996. 4 James Rusk, "Ontario Cuts Snow Removal," Globe and Mail, 17 October 1995. 5 Bull, "An IR Systems Framework Analysis of Essential Service Bargaining Outcomes," 4 6 In the first week of the strike a riot broke out at Bluewater Young Offenders Centre in Goderich. Damage was estimated at $250,000. Guards left the picket lines to quell the riot. 7 Martin Mittelstaedt, "25,000 Civil Servants Set to Strike," Globe and Mail, 24 February 1996. CHAPTER TWELVE

1 While I was standing on the picket line on the morning after that court decision, I counted thirteen "observers" on the Government side of the entrance and three on the TTC side. They were photographing us and taking notes. They questioned people who went through our line and they repeatedly counted the number of picketers. I asked our lawyer to apply for an injunction limiting the number of employer and TTC agents who could monitor us. 2 Estey, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, 54. CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1 Daniel Girard, "Last Offer Has $500 Million Cost: Union," Toronto Star, 2 March 1996. 2 Martin Mittelstaedt, "Talks to Resume in OPSEU Walkout," Globe and Mail, 9 March 1996.

Notes to pages 197-206 2.39 3 Daniel Girard, "Tories See 'Long' Impasse in Strike," Toronto Star, 15 March 1996. 4 Daniel Girard, "Union, Government Move Toward Deal," Toronto Star, 28 March 1996. 5 Ibid. 6 Factor 80 is Ontario Public Service early retirement program. You are eligible if your pensionable years of service plus your age equal eighty. There is a three-month window of eligibility. If that passes, you continue working (you hope) until you turn sixty-five or reach the factor 90. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1 Watson, "Ontario Workers Take on the 'Common Sense Revolution,'" 140. 2 Loreto, "Making and Implementing the Decisions," 116-17.

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Bibliography

Bull, Diane. "An IR Systems Framework Analysis of Essential Services Bargaining Outcomes in the Ontario Public Service." Unpublished paper. April 1996 Clarke, John. "Fighting To Win." In Open For Business, Closed to People: Mike Harris's Ontario, ed. by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald and Neree St-Amand. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1997 Collective Agreement with Respect to Working Conditions, Employee Benefits and Salaries between Management Board of Cabinet (Government of Ontario) and Ontario Public Service Employees Union, January 1, 1992, to December 31, 1993. Toronto, 5 March 1992 Collective Agreement with Respect to Working Conditions, Employee Benefits and Salaries between Management Board of Cabinet (Government of Ontario) and Ontario Public Service Employees Union, January 1, 1994 to December 31, 1998. Toronto, 30 August 1996 Estey, Willard Z. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Events of March 18, 1996, at Queen's Park. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, 1996 Globe and Mail, 1994-96. Government of Ontario. Civil Service Commission Annual Report. Toronto: Civil Service Commission, 1950-51, 1972-73, 1991-92, 1994-95 - Corporate Strike Response Team. Strike Response Communications Guide. Toronto, 1996 - Negotiations Secretariat of Management Board Secretariat. At The Table. Oct. 1995-Feb. 1996 - Instant Topical Oct. 1995-Feb. 1996 Heron, Craig. The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History. 2nd edn. Toronto: Lorimer, 1996 Ibbitson, John. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution. Scarborough: Prentice Hall, 1997

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La Botz, Dan. A Troublemaker's Handbook. Detroit: Labor Notes, 1991 Laxer, James. In Search of a New Left Toronto: Viking, 1996 Loreto, Richard. "Making and Implementing the Decisions: Issues of Public Administration in the Ontario Government." In The Government and Politics of Ontario, 5th ed., ed. Graham White. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997 McQuaig, Linda. The Cult of Impotence. Toronto: Viking, 1998 Moscovitch, Allan. "Social Assistance in the New Ontario." In Open For Business, Closed to People: Mike Harris's Ontario, ed. by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald and Neree St-Amand. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1997 Noel, Sid. "Ontario's Tory Revolution." In Revolution at Queen's Park, ed. Sid Noel. Toronto: Lorimer, 1997 North Bay Nugget, 1996 Ontario Federation of Labour. Organizing in a Cold Climate. Toronto, November 1997 Ontario Public Service Employees Union. OPSEU fax. Sept. 1995 - Feb. 1996 - OPSEU News, 1994-96 - OPS Local Strike Manual. Toronto: OPSEU, 1995 - Picket Lines. (OPSEU strike newsletter), 1-30, Feb.-March 1996 - Steward Strike Manual for OPS Members. Toronto: OPSEU, 1995 - Table Talk, 1994-96 Panitch, Leo, and Swartz, Donald. The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms. Toronto: Garamond, 1993 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The Common Sense Revolution. Toronto, April 1994 Rae, Bob. From Protest To Power. Toronto: Viking, 1996 Roberts, Wayne. Don't Call Me Servant. Toronto: The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 1994 Stanford, Jim. "Permanent Recession." Studies in Political Economy 48 (Aug. 1995). Tanguay, A. Brian. '"Not in Ontario': From the Social Contract to the Common Sense Revolution." In Revolution at Queen's Park, ed. Sid Noel. Toronto: Lorimer, 1997 Toronto Star, 1995-96 Toronto Sun, 1995-96 Turk, James. "Days of Action: Challenging the Harris Corporate Agenda." In Open For Business, Closed to People: Mike Harris's Ontario, ed. by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald and Neree St-Amand. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1997 Walkom, Thomas. "The Harris Government: Restoration or Revolution." In The Government and Politics of Ontario, 5th edn, ed. Graham White. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997

Bibliography 2.43 - Rae Days. Toronto: Key Porter, 1994 Watkins, Mel. "Canadian Capitalism in Transition." In Understanding Canada, ed. Wallace Clement. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997 Watson, Steve. "Ontario Workers Take On the 'Common Sense Revolution.'" In Open For Business, Closed to People: Mike Harris's Ontario, ed. by Diana Ralph, Andre Regimbald and Neree St-Amand. Halifax: Fern wood Publishing, 1997 Windsor Star, 1995-96 Wiseman, Nelson. "Change In Ontario Politics." In The Government and Politics of Ontario, 5th edn, ed. Graham White. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997 Woolstencroft, Peter. "Reclaiming the 'Pink Palace': The Progressive Conservative Party Comes in from the Cold." In The Government and Politics of Ontario, 5th edn, ed. Graham White. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997

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Index

Adams, Gary, 95 Adams, Richard, 8, 152-3 Albrecht, Jim, 175, 176 Allingham, Rosemarie, 12.5 AMAPCEO: history, 28, 119-30; behaviour during the strike, 13 0-3; employment stability settlement during the OPSEU strike, 194-6 Anderson, Gavin, 94, 173 Anger, Evelyn, 115, 12.6, 138, 142 Angus, Noreen, 8, 45, 158, 168 Anwyll, Smokey, 24, 96, 146 arbitration system in the OPS, 22, 23, 26-8 At the Table, 108, 112 bargaining councils, 86-7, 95 bargaining issues: pensions, 76, 79, 80, 190; bumping, 76, 77, 79, 196, 199-200; seniority, 76, 196, 200; severance, 80; new classification system, 76, 79-80, 200; short-term layoff, 77, 79, 191, 196, 199; voluntary exit option, 77, 190, 196; successor

rights, 77, 81, 190; reasonable efforts, 200 Bekerman, Andre, 102, 112; on downsizing, 67; on essential services negotiations, 73; on application for conciliation by the government, 77; "the funnel," 77, 192; on the AMAPCEO deal, 195 Belcastro, Nella, 141, 197 Belyea, Walter, 205 Bergman, Ruth, 8, 115, 155, 159, 167 bill 7, 38, 39,46-7, 57, 89; effect on essential services negotiations, 75-6, 171-2 bill 26, 39, 57, 60, 78; effect on OPS pensions, 47-8 Bilodeau, Paul, 87, 88, 91, 92 Blizzard, Christina, 54 Bobb, Yvonne, 123 Boutilier, Judy, 94 Boutros, Violette, 136 Bragaglia, Dominic, 96, 128, 132, 179 Broader Public Sector (EPS), 18 Brown, Sue, in, 115, 126, 130, 132, 141, 177 Brunet, Pierre, 131

Bull, Diane, 72; on essential services, 174-5, 193-4 Buonastella, Orlando, 203 Burak, Rita, 101 Byce, Elizabeth, 205 Calvert, David, 164, 208 Campbell, Wayne, 138, 159 Campeau, Yvette, 142 Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), 7, 58, 144, 149, 167, 168, 201, 205 Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), 205 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), 21, 57, 69, 115, 148, 203 Carlson, Maureen, 129 Carneiro, Tony, 107, 144 Casselman, Leah, 24, 145, 196; on last-minute deal with the Rae government, 74, 81; on mobilization, 91; after the strike vote, 103; on returning to the table, 107; on the start of the strike, no, 114; on the picket lines, 163; on strikebreaking, 179; on government as employer, 180; on the Harris government, 183; scolds

2,46

INDEX

Johnson for public remarks, 197-8; on the strike, 207 cellphones, 7, n, 204 Chapman, Michael, 206 Charlton, Brian, 74 Chiro, Don, 95, 108 chronology of the strike, 213-20 Churchill, Patricia, 5 Civil Service Association on Ontario (CSAO), 2O-2

Clancy, James, 24-5 Clarke, John, 57 classification system (OPS), 65-6; development of job evaluation system, 68-9, 76 Clift, Joan, 156 coalitions (labour and community), 58-9, 62 Colbourne, Michael, 97, 104, in, 155 collective agreement, 42-3, 47, 64-5 collective bargaining, 64; history, 18-19; history in the public sector, 19-23; in the OPS, 63; structure of bargaining (OPS), 64-7; global vs occupational, 66-8; approach by NDP government, 67-8; 1992-93 round of bargaining, 67-9; demand setting, 71; bargaining before the strike, 63-82; opening position of government, 76-7; opening position of OPSEU, 77; government applies for conciliation, 77-8; bargaining during conciliation, 79-80; government's "best offer," 80-1; strike vote, 80-1; bargaining during the strike, 189-200; returnto-work protocal (reprisals), 198-9; ratifi-

cation, 199; the end product, 199-200 College of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT), 18 Collom, Dennis, 197, 198 Common Sense Revolution (CSR), 10-11; government program, 39-40; ideology, 31-2, 48, 162; effects on the OPS, 42-3, 41-9; opposition to, 53-62 community support, 161-9; urban/non-urban differences, 162, 168-9; public opinion, 162-3; OPSEU'S public presence, 163-64 Conroy, Harriet, 118, 168 Coombs, Barbara, 164, 167, 168, 169 Corporate Strike Response Team, 101, 113, 193 Corrections: strike (1979), 22; walkout (1989), 22 Crabtree, Maureen, 124 Cross, Bill, 124, 133 Crowd Management Unit (OPP riot squad), 4-7 Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act (CECBA), 22-3, 25, 27, 46, 61; and essential services, 71, 171 Culkeen, Mike, 176 Cunningham, Diane, 94 Curling, Alvin, 3, 54, 60 Gushing, James, 115, 126 Dacanay, Cesar, 130, 205 Davis, Bill, 22 days of action, 58-60. See also London Day of Action; Hamilton Days of Action deregulation, 29 Doig, Pam, 92, 140, 163 Downey, Terry, 56, 94, 115 dues checkoff, 19, 55

Eady, Don, 181, 182-6 Egan, Carolyn, 57, 203 Elliot, Ron: on the right to strike, 27; on 1992-93 collective bargaining, 68; on negotiation strategy, 81; on preparing for the strike, 97; on a staggered strike, 114; on strike pay, 140; on the media, 197; on the strike, 207 Ellis, Elaine: as co-chair of Londay Day of Action, 54, 58, 92, 94; on Bill 7, 75; on the strike vote, 83; on essential services bargaining, 86; on the strike, 208 Elstone, Rosemary, 4 employee benefits during the strike, 111-12 Endicott, Marian, 203 essential services, 25, 166, 170-9; negotiations before the strike, 71-2, 173-5; union dues on essential service workers, 127-9; agreements, 127, 140-1; limit of free collective bargaining, 171; hospitals, 173; Corrections, 127, 175-7; rotation at the jails, 128, 176, 179; public health laboratories, 128-9; selection of essential service workers, 177; inspections during the strike, 141, 178; disputes during the strike, 193-4; the dilemma, 172-3 Estey, Willard Z., 186 Estey Commission report, 18 6-8 Eves, Ernie, 37, 42 Fairley, Rob, 118-19, 125 family relations, 158-9 Faulknor, Ed, 45, 136, 138

Index fax war, 98-100 Filo, John, 148 FitzRandolph, Katie, 146 Fletcher, Paula, 7 free trade, 32-3, 35 Frise, Beth, 167 Gallupe, Diane, 97, 12.1, 116 Gannage, Gary, 130, 195-6 Gardner, Paul, 79-80, 98, 196 Caspar, Anne, 130, 135, 137, 141, 159, 165, 177, 178 Gates, Joan, 144, 197; on the broader politics of the strike, 56, 104; on essential services, 12.8, 172, 177, 179; on AMAPCEO, 130

Gavin, Heather, 48, 112, 2.08 George, Dudley, 8 George, Stephen, 7 Gibson, Teenie, 135 Giles, Stephen, 3-6, 8, 150 Gillespie, Marcia, 47, 2,00 Glasbeek, Harry, 48-9, 78 Gosal, Jhalman, 115, 203 government as rulemaker, 181 government strike preparation, 101 Gray, Douglas, 76 Great Lakes College lockout, 38, no Gregoire, John, 127 Grimes, Tom, 96 Guglietti, Jean, 205 Hamilton Days of Action, 3, 53, 61-2,113 Hannah, Tim, 175 Hansen, Joyce, 193 Harper, Sandra, 203, 204 Harris, David, 5-6 Harris, Mike, 37-8, 53, 114; as a strike motivator, 85; encounter with OPSEU picket line, 125

Harris government, 9; election, 29-32; first six weeks, 37-40; and unions, 37, 38, 43, 55, 63-4. See also Common Sense Revolution Haynes, Cindy, 123, 127, i?5> J775 T?8 Hebdon, Bob, 21, 26, 35 Henderson, Ian, 100 Hepburn, Mitchell, 9 Heron, Craig, 18, 21 Hewison, George, 7 Hoag, Gary, in Howarth, Andrea, 113 Howes, Bill, 9, 205 Hughes, Carol, 94, 155, 165 Huhtala, Karen, 154-5, 159 Huitema, Elizabeth, 112, 190 Hunnius, Valerie, 205 Hupet, Len, 114, 163, 208 injunctions, picket line, 119; government strategy, 120 Instant Topical, 98-100 Ireson, Wayne, 94, 138 Johnson, Dave: on collective bargaining rights for civil servants, 41; on OPS layoffs, 46; on eliminating successor rights in the OPS, 47, 61, 104; on results of the strike vote, 107; encouraging strikebreaking, 108; on negotiations, 112, 192 Jones, Leslynne, 202 Jordan, Cheryl, 130, 159 Jordan, Don, no, 159, 165,167 just-in-time workers, 35-6 Khan, Tina, 124 Kidd, David, 205 Kuehnbaum, Bill, 205; on the right to strike, 24-5; on the strike fund, 24,

2,47

93-4; on the strike vote, 104, 117, 140, 148; dealing with creditors, 157 Labour Council, Lakehead, 150; Sudbury, 148, 159; Toronto and York Region, 12, 57, 167 Langois, Rejean, 164 Lankin, Frances, 27-8; on CECBA reform and the right to strike 23, 25 Laporte, Mike, 144 Larcher, Richard, 176 Lauzon, Steve, 127, 128, 131, 179 La Valley, Ethel, 150, 185 Lavigne, Merv, 24-5 Lawder, Roy, 125, 142, 158, 164, 167, 175 Lawrence, Gary, 115, 143 Laws, Karen, 148 Layton, Jack, 203 Leeb, Gavin, 6, 7, 95, 96, no, 187, 203 legal issues, 119, 180-8; right to delay on a picket line, 183-4; picketing on third-party property, 184-5; picketing at courthouses, 185-6; MPS and picket lines, 186-8 Lehr, Clarence, 92 Lewis, Michael, 203 Linds, Barbara, 145 Little, Tim, 204 London Day of Action, 3, 54, 59-6o, 91-3 Lowry, Brian, 17, 124, 166, 167, 169 Loxton, Kelly, 104, in, 125, 130 McArthur, Robin, 154-5 McCormack, Judith, 180, 181,186-88 McGrath, John, 107 McGregor, Larry, 176, 178 McKnight, Dan, in, 114, 133,

137,

147,

157,

2,01

248

INDEX

MacLennan, John, zo5 McPhee, Agatha, in, 140 Mallette, Don, 148 management rights, 2.8 Marion, Judith, in, 146 Marston, Wayne, 113 Martel, Shelley, 148 Martin, Marilou, 59-60 Martin, Marjorie, 124, 131, 132., 168 Mather, John, 80, 174, 187,i9Z Mayes, Brian, 73, 95, 146, 193, 194 Metro Network for Social Justice, 6, 145 Miller, Bente, 133, 172 Miller, Derek, 73, 176 Miller, Mitch, 8, 118 Mills, John, 204 Mitchell, Martin, 177 Mitchell, Michael, 186 mobilization by OPSEU, 83-104; communications, 87-8, 93, 95-6, 98-100; OPSEU fax, 87-8, 93, 107; phone banks, 95-6 Moscoe, Howard, 184, ZOZ

Mulroney, Brian, 30, 3 z Murphy, Dan, 75, zo8 Muscat, Sergeant Jim, 9, 133

Noad, Sandra, 96, iZ4, 130, 131, 178, zo7 Noble, Michele, 101 O'Brien, John, 71, 7z, 74, 94, IQZ, 103 O'Flynn, Sean, zz Oliver, Mike, 56, 96, 97, 164 Ontario Coalition against Poverty (OCAP), 57 Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (OCBTU), 12.3 Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA), 60, zo3, zi7 Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), 145, 150, 167, 185; support for OPSEU strike, 9; days of action, 54, 58; opposition politics, 55; 1993 convention, 58; 1995 convention, 56, 68; relationship with NDP, 58 Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), 74-5, 91; applications during the strike, 119 Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA), in, 145 Ontario Provincial Police(opp), 8-9, 134 Ontario Public Service (OPS), 78, zo-i; downsizing, 46; under the Rae government, 68 Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), 144, zi7 opposition movement, 53-6z; OPSEU strike as an expression of, 118; occupation of Harris office in North Bay, 60; student protest, 60; depth of opposition,

National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), 57 National Citizen's Coalition, Z4~5 negotiating in the media, I9Z-3, 196-7 neoconservatism, 29, 33-4; applied to management theory and practice, 35-6 New Democratic Party, 54-5, 6z OPSEU history, acquiring 54-5, 58-9, 68 the right to strike, Nield, Steve, 96, izi, 125, i7-z8 130, 145, 159, 164, 178

OPSEU publications: OPSEU fax, 87-8; Table Talk, 100; Picket Lines, 140, 147, 157; Daily Striker (St Catharines), 146-7; On the Line (Sudbury), 148; Kiel Line (Queen's Park), 148-9; Picket Line North (North Bay), 149-50; On the Waterfront (Thunder Bay), 150 Palladini, Al, 41, 173 Parrot, Jean-Claude, 95, no Paul, Jim, 95, 144 pensions, z8, 47; "rule of 55," 47. See also bargaining issues Pesce, Angelo, 23, 68, 73, 74, 190; on the deal with AMAPCEO, 196; on reprisals, 199 Peterson, David, Z3 Piccini, Carol, 131, 159 picket lines: as a political statement, 118, izi, izz; transformation of civil servants, 118-19, 138-9; protocols, izo; OPSEU picket strategy, 117, 119, izo; government strategy, 117, 119; encounters with management, iz3~5; leadership by women, izi-z; and the public, i3i-z; and family visitors, 13 z; and police, 133-4; culture and community, 137-60; administration of 139-44; picket captains, 139, 140; flying squads, 125, 143; clusters, 143; social activity, 159-60 Pilgrim, Rod, 156, 165 political rights for civil servants, 27, 180 polling by OPSEU, 4z, 85; first poll, 85-6; second

Index poll, 89; third poll, 93; results, 2.2.2-4 Powell, Annemarie, izi Presley, Will: arrest at Mike Harris's office, 60; on bargaining councils, 86; on SACGS, 90-1; on scrounging, in; on AMAPCEO, 130; on hardship, 157; family, 158; on community support, 163-4 Pridham, Nancy, 121, 165, 177, 194 Prince, Karan, 56, 84, i3 6 > J59, 164, 172 privatization, 63, 12,1, 23i-2n2 Professional Engineers of the Government of Ontario (PEGO), 147 property assessors' arbitration award, 26 Pry or, Faye, 159 Queen's Park OPP riot, 3-7, 8-9, 120 Queen's Park TTC tunnel, 120, 135, 184-5

Rae, Bob, 37 Rae government, 3,37, 41-3, 58, 109; collective bargaining with OPSEU, 67-70, 73-5 Rand formula, 24 Rank and File Band, 7, 145 reasonable efforts. See bargaining issues Reiter, Ester, 60 Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union(RWDSu), 154-5 Retallick, Rena, 128 right to strike, 17-28; opposition in OPSEU, 26-8; and Rae government, 25-6; CSR views on, 47-8 Roach-Ferguson, Lynda, 102, 157, 168

2.49

Robarts, John, 21-2 Rooney, Frank, 85, 89, 93, 98, 176, 193 Ross, Stewart, 206 Rudka, Sally: reaction to strike vote, 98; first day of strike, 115; on Oshawa flying squad, 121; on blocking trucks, 13 2-3; her arrest, 136; organizing a rally, 145; food bank, 156; support in a union town, 168; return to work, 201 Runciman, Bob, 9, 149, 199

strike fund, 24, 93-4; mismanagement of, 71, 93 strike manual, 88 strike pay, 140 strike vote, 102-4; OPSEU mobilizes for, 83-104; OPSEU calls the vote, 97; results of, 103; interpretation of, 104; government response, 107-8 strike welfare, 154-8; food banks, 154-6; scrounging, 15 5-6; hardship, 156-8 successor rights, 46 Sunstrum, Gregg, 156

Santos, Sal, 7, 139 Schenk, Chris, 34-5, 36 Seaward, Mike, 203 Service Area Coordinating Group (SACG), 90-1 Shaul, Gary, 6, 7, 115, 117, 135, 145, 167, 203 Shearer, Pat, 143, 167, 169 Signoretti, Ken, 185 Slee, Peter, 154 Smeaton, Malcolm, 43, 101, 126-7, I2 9> J93 Smith, Mary Sue, 173 Snobelen, John, 42 Social Contract, 41, 69-70; response from labour, 58 Southern Ontario News Guild, 203 sovereignty of Parliament, 20 Spadafora, Rick, 6 Stinson, Terry, 76, 189 Stohr, Michael, 165-6, 170, 192 strikebreakers and strikebreaking, 119, 125-7; government encouragement of before the strike, 48, 108-9; OPSEU discourages, no; government strategy during the strike, 127

Tait, Jim, 204 Taylor, Darryl, 141, 142-3, 172, 178 Taylor, Ken, 124, 144, 167, 201 Taylor, Norma, 159, 164, 168 Thistletown Regional Centre, 165-6, 203 Thompson, Nancy, 169 Thomson, Marie, 132, 166 Todd, Andy, 63-4, 79, 190, 207 Toivonen, Bev, 126, 142 Torney, Linda, 12; on the right to strike, 28; on OPSEU strike as opposition politics, 56; opening Queen's Park strike headquarters, 95; first night of strike, 114; on 18 March, 145; on essential services, 171; on court decisions, 183 Tsubouchi, David, 37, 57 Turk, James, 59, 62 unionism, 18; service model, 55, 90; organizing model, 55, 88, 90 union-management relations: under the Rae government, 43-4; under the CSR govern-

2-50

INDEX

ment, 44; debate within OPSEU, 44-6; joint ERC committees, 44-6, 75 unions, 18-19; history, 18-13 United Steelworkers of America (USWA), 6, 57, 94, 144, 149, 167, 2.03, 206 Upshaw, Fred, 2.4, 2.7, 28, 48, 68, 97, 121 Vanier, Virgery, 133

Visintin, Bea, 42., 130, 141, 142 Walkom, Tom, 8, 48, 58, 78 Walter, Paul, 9, 61 Watkins, Mel, 34 Weisleder, Barry, 131, 135, 160 Whitmore, Eileen, 132, 167 Williams, Dan, 158 Williams, Peggy, 158

Wilson, Gord, 55, 57, 148, 167, 184, 188 Witherspoon, Rick, 54, 58 Witmer, Elizabeth, 37, 38 working life, changes in last three decades, 34-7 Wrightly, Norma, 132, 172 Youden, Marilyn, 96 Young, Terence, 134, 202 Zafiriadis, Ifi, 120, 142, 167, 197