What do you want to know about Ontario teacher strikes? Tension between Ontario teachers and the government are leading unions to take job action for the first time in 20 years. Send your questions to social torstar. Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now it is free. Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.
By Star Staff Thu. How do parents get compensated for daycare costs? Provincial Politics. Read more about: Doug Ford. Report an error. Journalistic Standards. The response from teachers was swift. As Dec. A Toronto Star editorial from Dec. Despite this, teachers were widely supported by the general public. Readers of The Star wrote in to defend the teachers, with letters like the following:. A bully gets what he wants by fear and brute force. This they could do because they had absolute power to act outside the law — responsible to no one.
It appears these are the methods adopted by the Davis administration. The Liberals, unsure of where to stand, voted for Bill on the first reading, only to reverse their position during the final vote.
Much like a chameleon, they were prepared to change colours as it became politically convenient for them — but lizards they remained. The participation on Dec. Out of , teachers, around 90, joined the strike.
In response, the government dug their heels in. Schools were kept open, with principals, parents and even caretakers asked to supervise classrooms. It was all for naught. Few students turned up for class, with attendance as low as six per cent in certain regions. An 11 a. At its height, 20, crowded the enormous venue — well beyond capacity. Another stood outside for lack of space, listening intently via loudspeaker.
Signs were everywhere. He declared:. This legislation is not divinely right, but devilishly wrong and will lead them all to political damnation. The crowd, in turn, roared in approval. It was also one of the most effective. Fearing escalation, Davis withdrew the legislation within days. However, perhaps more important was the impact the strike had on teachers. He was not far from the truth. Without a doubt, these modest work-to-rule initiatives, alongside rotating strikes and weekend rallies, may put pressure on the Province while minimizing the impact on parents, students and individual union members.
If no deal is reached, the unions will eventually have to decide whether or not to call a full strike. Union leaders must consider a variety of factors when deciding whether or not to take their members out on strike. These include the health of their strike funds, political support, and most critically, their chance of success. For many years, the threat of back to work legislation would also have been a major factor in that calculation — particularly in the public sector. As with all constitutional rights and freedoms, the right to strike has two parts: 1 the definition which delineates the range of protected activities and 2 the circumstances in which a freedom can be legitimately infringed by a government.
Dickson had a very broad view of the freedom. The freedom articulated by Chief Justice Dickson was certainly broad, but also easy to understand and be applied by workers themselves. They have a straightforward freedom to associate to do what they were perfectly able to do as individuals — refuse to work without an agreed contract. And on the second issue, of the circumstance in which the state may take away the freedom, the Court in SFL set out, it seemed, some very straightforward rules.
Unfortunately, the current state of our law is not so clear on either the definition of the right to strike, or on the question of when it can be infringed.
Our law is confused. That is quite a mouthful. But, it will be said, at least SFL was clear on the second issue regarding the circumstances in which the freedom can be infringed. Only in rare cases of true essential services, as defined very narrowly by the ILO, will governments be permitted to limit the right.
So far, this simple idea too has turned out to be a mirage. In , the Canadian Union of Postal Workers challenged legislation ordering them back-to-work following a series of rotating strikes.
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