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TIME TO MOBILIZE FOR MEDICARE AND EDUCATION
"Labour In Action" Column by Liz Rowley
(This article is from the June 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice. 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.)
IF EVER THERE WAS a time for a massive mobilization of Canadian labour in defense of medicare, public education, adequate housing and living standards, and democratic rights, it is now.
The massive protests in Alberta against the Klein government's Bill 11 prove that even in the heartland of conservatism, the neo-cons have crossed the line. If a referendum were held on Bill 11 today, the Klein government would be sunk.
In Ontario, the Harris government has also crossed the line, allowing private universities to set up and compete for public funds with existing post-secondary institutions.
Additional "line-crossing" news from Ontario: (1) the Cabinet will give itself sweeping and arbitrary new powers to remove locally elected School Boards, and kill off local autonomy and democracy once and for all in education; (2) these powers will be used to force compliance from school boards and education unions in province-wide negotiations this fall; (3) a sweet deal with the province's doctors will jack up the cap on billable hours, further reducing patient access to essential health care and hospital services, and opening the door to two-tier medicine in Ontario.
This agenda, plus more to come on the labour side, will create conditions for the kinds of mass mobilizations that rocked Ontario three years ago.
Mass mobilization also rocked Nova Scotia last month, when the Hamm government announced plans to eliminate teachers, cancel programs, and close schools. The protests of thousands angry students and their families at the Legislature and across the province forced the government to back off the worst of the cuts.
And even in BC, sharp protests greeted the NDP's back-to-work legislation against striking school support staff. There too, "fiscal responsibility" is the watchword on government social spending.
A Canada-wide confrontation is emerging. It is clear that the public is itching to defend universal medicare and public education. In community after community, the Council of Canadians, the social justice coalitions, the health care coalitions, and many local grass roots organizations, often in tandem with local Labour Councils, are fighting back.
What's missing is the activity and leadership of the Canadian Labour Congress, its affiliates, and the provincial Federations of Labour. A massive national Day of Protest and Job Action in defense of medicare, public education, and universality, could unite all those struggling in separate battles into a united and powerful coalition.
The Days of Action in Ontario showed how to turn mass anger into mass action, how to build labour-community coalitions around clear popular demands that brought thousands of people into the streets.
The CLC has a record of mobilization on key questions, such as the first Canada-wide general strike in 1976 against Trudeau's wage control legislation, and the mass rally on Parliament Hill against high interest rates.
We at another such pivotal moment now. Events cry out for the CLC to seize the initiative and bring the organized power of the Canadian labour movement into the very centre of this broad, urgent and decisive struggle.
The battles in Seattle and Washington show what labour can contribute, and why it must, in the struggle against corporate greed and corporate rule.
A post-script: Vicious anti-labour legislation is on the agenda this fall, in Ontario and in other provinces. The intent is to prevent labour from stepping into the militant role it played in the past. This makes it even more urgent to defend not just labour rights, but also the democratic right to fight back - and to win.
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