Austerity Strangles Ontario: the TA strikes in Context
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- Published on Thursday, 05 March 2015 19:44
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1088 .... March 6, 2015
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Austerity for working people and the accumulation of wealth in the corporate sector was sold as short-term pain for long-term gain. What we got of course was pain now, pain later, and never-ending pain if we don't organize to end it. The continuous pressure on public and private sector workers seems now to be leading to resistance, especially in the public sector. Yet though the latter struggles directly involve the state, unions are taking them on one at a time and this means that they remain fragmented, isolated, defensive. To its credit, the CUPE locals have framed the current strikes at the University of Toronto and York in these broader terms, emphasizing the growing precariousness of work in this formerly ‘privileged’ sector, the impact on the quality of... education, and the larger context of government funding cutbacks. It is crucial to both support all these emerging struggles and at the same time constantly ask how they can be taken further.
Austerity Strangles Ontario:
the TA strikes in Context
David Bush and Doug Nesbitt
Toronto is in the midst of an unprecedented strike by over 10,000 Teaching Assistants (TA) and contract faculty at York University and the University of Toronto: the country's two largest universities. Only blocks away from the University of Toronto picket lines, the Liberal government in Queen's Park has been waging a war against the Ontario Public Service (OPS), represented by OPSEU, raising the prospect of the first OPS strike since 2002. From universities to the public service, from healthcare to municipal services, the Ontario Liberal austerity regime has now lasted longer than Mike Harris’ time in office.
Their approach has usually been different from the frontal assault of the Harris years. The Liberal government, especially under Wynne, has been adept at carrying out austerity by isolating potential struggles. Cuts and tough bargaining are directed against one sector of the public service, while others are temporarily left alone, to suffer under a slow strangulation of funds.
When it comes to revenue problems, the Liberals are happy to blame the lack of federal transfers on the Harper Tories. But this is only half the story. The Liberals have repeatedly cut the corporate tax rate, have written off $1.4-billion in owed corporate taxes, and wasted billions on privatized "P3" hospital construction.
The gas plant scandal cost the province a billion dollars, while the Ornge air ambulance scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of large, steady salary increases for top management in public services -- while frontline workers are getting squeezed, contracted out, and legislated back-to-work.
Unwilling to tax the rich, or tax the corporations, or bring revenue-generating services under public control (like Highway 407 or the Beer Store), the Liberals are only looking for savings by cutting services and holding down wages.
Their answer to everything is turning the screws on workers and when that doesn't work, using heavy-handed legislation, like Bill 115 against the teachers.