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COMMUNISTS CONDEMN BACK-TO-WORK ORDER
(This article is from the April 16-30/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
MEETING IN VANCOUVER on April 2, the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of BC unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the NDP government's back-to-work legislation against 20,000 striking school support workers. The resolution also called on the province to address the root cause of this labour dispute by beginning to provide adequate funding for the education system.
Commenting after the schools reopened, Communist Party of BC leader George Gidora, himself a former school support worker and member of CUPE, sharply criticized the new Dosanjh government for making this anti-labour legislation one of its first measures. Gidora also condemned Gordon Campbell's Liberals for their demand to classify the education system as an essential service, pointing out that essential services are only those considered necessary to save lives.
"The provincial government has to understand that its attempt to create a new bargaining system for school support workers and their employers has resulted in an impossible situation, both for CUPE and for the school boards," said Gidora. "Without the funding levels necessary to operate the public education system, the present bargaining process is bound to fail, imposing hardships on school workers, students, and parents alike. The government should have seen this crisis coming, and it should have responded months ago to CUPE's request to intervene and clarify the process."
Gidora charged that the attack against CUPE by the Liberals and the corporate media around the school volunteer issue is nothing more than union-bashing.
"CUPE has never been opposed to parent volunteers in the school system," he pointed out. "But it is an undeniable fact that in many parts of the province, school boards have been replacing trained school staff with volunteers. CUPE members had no choice but to oppose this attack on their jobs, and our party will continue to support the union's efforts to protect its members and to defend the public education system as a whole."
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