In 1996, OPSEU went on strike for the first time, standing up to Mike Harris’ Progressive Conservative government, its cuts, and its bad-faith negotiating—and won. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the strike under Doug Ford’s Conservatives, the lessons of the strike are worth revisiting. OPSEU’s blueprint for fighting Harris offers us many ideas today for keeping the fight for public services and good jobs alive.
Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution
In 1995, Mike Harris and his Progressive Conservative government walked into the Legislative Assembly boasting of their big plan to bring common sense back to Ontario. The Ontario PCs had a parliamentary majority, so they were free to slash programs and pass bills confidently and recklessly. They claimed that Ontario had fallen from its prosperous past, and they saw the solution as implementing free-market policies learned from neoliberal regimes in the 1980s, leading Ontario away from its labour victories won after World War II.
The Harris conservatives painted regulation, social welfare, and the labour movement as the main drivers behind economic stagnation and unemployment. They sold their plan to restructure the government as a “Common Sense Revolution.” There were too many people on welfare, too many civil servants, and too many taxes. According to David Rapaport, member of the OPSEU executive board from 1991-1997 and author of No Justice, No Peace: The 1996 OPSEU Strike against the Harris Government in Ontario, the aim of the Common Sense Revolution was to “free the economy from the constraints, regulations, and social programs established during the past half-century.”
The Mike Harris government—plagued with businessmen and ideological capitalists—began its rollbacks by announcing $1.9 billion in cuts, reducing 500,000 people’s welfare payments by over 20%. Payments to school boards, universities, and civil service agencies were reduced. Day-care services, pay-equity, and employment equity programs were cut. The Workplace Health and Safety Agency was closed. David Tsubouchi, Harris’ Minister of Community and Social Services, told welfare recipients to survive by negotiating the price of tuna cans with grocery store owners.
On September 27th, 1995, Harris held his Throne Speech, where he announced plans to reform the Ontario Labour Relations Act to benefit employers and to take the right to form unions away from farm workers. Bill 7 was passed by the legislative assembly, which repealed the anti-scab legislation recently won during Bob Rae’s NDP government and simplified decertification of unions while complicating their certification process. Bill 26 was passed soon too, granting the Minister of Health absolute authority to manage hospitals, weakened pay equity settlements for women, and diluted the power of arbitration for public sector workers.
The public sector had already been hurt by the Rae government’s attempt to cut 5,000 jobs over three years, opposition to increases on their wages, and introduction of the “Social Contract,” a law that reduced public sector spending by $2 billion. After Harris came to power, Bill 7 hurt the capacity of public sector workers for collective bargaining and diminished pensions for older workers who got laid off.
OPSEU now realized that they were under attack and began mobilizing and becoming more militant as Harris’ government progressed. Rapaport claims that the government’s hostile behavior helped the strike, because workers got scared they would lose their jobs and decided to become more active. “Mike Harris proved to be our best organizer,” he wrote.
In the fall of 1995, more layoffs were announced, aiming to axe 13,000 workers. As the year went by, the government kept announcing more cuts and more layoffs. $500 million more was cut from ministry spending. OPSEU’s pension provisions were taken away, along with successor rights for workers. Bill 26 had weakened their arbitration rights. The Harris government talked openly about their plans to privatize sections of the public sector. Curiously, though, they never took away their right to strike.
Lead-up and pre-strike bargaining
OPSEU gained the right to collective bargaining in 1972, two decades after the postwar compromise, and they started mobilizing to gain the right to strike in 1976. Nearly two decades later, they won the right to strike in 1994 thanks to Bill 117, passed by Bob Rae’s NDP.
When Mike Harris took power, there was widespread opposition to the Common Sense Revolution. A Liberal MPP staged a one-night sit-in against Bill 26, delaying its implementation until after the government held public hearings on it. After Harris’ Throne Speech, 5,000 people showed up to Queen’s park to protest. With every move the Harris conservatives made in office, public opposition to the Common Sense Revolution grew.
OPSEU’s collective bargaining process began in 1994, under Bob Rae’s government, but their relationship had turned sour, and Rae stalled negotiations until after he had left office. The new government, led by Tories, was openly antagonistic toward the public sector. Essential services were negotiated first, and they agreed to around 12,000 workers across Ontario who would be considered essential. The Harris government wanted pensions to be decided by management instead of the union, along with disregarding seniority and introducing shorter notice periods for lay-offs. OPSEU proposed stronger benefits for unclassified employees, stronger anti-harassment language, stronger health and safety committees, paid education leave, and an innovative proposal: the job-security funnel, which would provide those with seniority with the opportunity to be bought out of their jobs or be transferred to a different job the employer needs done.
After months of negotiating, the Harris government applied for conciliation on November 22nd, 1995. One week later, it tabled Bill 26, increasing its attack on Ontario Public Service workers. The Tories were trying to force a strike-lockout situation by January, and the union needed more time to mobilize and prepare. They filed a complaint with the Labour Board to stall the strike and cut a deal that conciliations would last until the end of January, delaying a no-board report until then.
On the 11th of December, 1995, the Ontario Federation of Labour staged a “Day of Action” protest in London to oppose the Common Sense Revolution. 15,000 people attended, shutting down the whole city.
Conciliation negotiations between OPSEU and the government began on January 8th. The government quickly dropped its demands for pensions to be a management right, and at the end of the month OPSEU dropped ninety-five of its proposals. However, on February 2nd the government decided to introduce even more demands, including a shorter maximum lay-off notice period. In response, OPSEU gave the government 48 hours to give them their best offer. The government offered some improvements, but did not budge on successor rights or lay-off periods. The next day, OPSEU leadership rejected the offer and asked the membership to vote against it.
The weekend before the strike began, the OFL organized a second Day of Action protest in Hamilton, taking place over two days. On Friday, February 23rd, 25,000 people arrived from across Ontario to protest the Common Sense Revolution. The following day, the number of people in attendance rose to 100,000.
Mobilizing for the strike
After Bill 26, OPSEU leadership got a hunch of what was to come. They took it as a wake-up call. They had conducted a poll in late July, and were surprised to find out 52% of the membership supported striking to keep their job-security provisions—they had expected less than 35%. They began a newsletter called OPSEU Fax, which would initially be sent to local presidents, but would go on to reach every union member’s fax, and eventually every Ontario Government fax machine. They sent issues explaining the latest aggressions from the Harris government and how union activists were responding. OPSEU also produced a strike manual, urging members to get prepared for a strike—wear buttons and pins, talk to coworkers, and organize publicly and loudly—not because they wanted one, but because strike preparation would let the employer know that they meant business. It would also help win a strike, if it came to that.
OPSEU conducted a second poll late in October, where they learned that more of its membership was aware of their right to strike and that fear of the Common Sense Revolution was growing—more and more people thought they would lose their jobs or that their sector might get privatized. Once members learned that Bill 7 took away some of their protections, they became even more willing to strike. The OFL’s London Day of Action had shown the union leadership that people were willing to mobilize against the Common Sense Revolution, and that OPSEU was capable of hitting the streets and being activists. A third poll in December told the leadership what issues mattered to the rank and file. They used this information for OPSEU Fax, agitating workers by telling them that the government would take away their pensions, seniority, and their job security.
Early in January, at a union meeting, someone asked the union leaders if they even had the money to go on strike. The union had $1 million in liquid assets, as well as a head office they could sell for very little money. However, OPSEU’s treasurer reported that the United Steelworkers union had promised $10 million without interest, and that essential workers would be paying the union 30% of their paychecks during the strike, providing $2 million more per week in funding. When the membership in attendance started to chant “Strike! Strike! Strike!” the leadership realized the turning point had come.
After the government’s best offer was rejected by the leadership, the negotiations mediator filed a no-board on February 9th, setting the legal strike date for the 26th. OPSEU called for a strike vote to be held between February 15th and the 17th. This triggered a “fax war” between the union and the employer. Ontario Government fax machines were flooded with literature urging union members to vote one way or the other. The government wanted a “Yes” vote to accept their best offer and the union wanted a “No” vote, which would mean a strike. 66.6% of OPSEU members voted to reject the offer. An OPSEU Fax issue was released stating that this did not yet mean a strike—they invited the government to come back to the bargaining table and avoid a strike. However, the government had spent its time preparing to strike-break, scare the union membership, and hire scabs. They had told the media that they were ready to lock workers out for three to four months in an effort to intimidate strikers, who would be surviving on a $100 per week wage. Negotiations resumed on February 20th, when OPSEU gave a new proposal and set a strike deadline for the 26th.
The government never responded to their proposal.
The strike begins
OPSEU had prepared to strike over the course of seven weeks. In the media, Harris publicly blamed Rae for giving them the right to strike in the first place: “They were given this candy. I’m not sure there was anything we could have done about it.”
On February 26th, around 25,000 workers appeared on the picket line. The picket lines held people at the door for twenty minutes, but sometimes they would try to play games with the crossers, letting them go in without any trouble one day and holding them as long as possible the next. Some managers were friendlier and supported the strike. They handed out food and coffee to picketers, although picketers disagreed on whether it was genuine support or a cynical move to avoid trouble. Even Mike Harris showed up to hand out donuts, but when he said, “We want to see you folks back to work,” the picketers handed the donuts back.
Since Bob Rae’s anti-scab legislation had been turned over by Bill 7, they became a real issue during the strike. In Orillia, picketers reported that scabs would respond to yelling by holding up their paychecks, smiling, and blowing kisses at them. Some tensions also arose with essential service workers, who were able to take home more substantial paychecks than the strikers, but almost everyone agreed that they provided a necessary service during the strike.
When doctors had to attend to a medical emergency or welfare recipients were in need of help, the picket-line holders would let them through. Similarly, family members of incarcerated people and hospital patients were allowed to cross over as visitors. There was an incident where a picketer banged on a hospital visitor’s car window, and was disciplined by being moved to a different line. The picketers were public servants, and were willing to provide help to the public even when it conflicted with the strike.
A community formed among the picketers. They sang songs together, yelled at scabs together, listened to the news together, stood out in the winter cold together, and discussed OPSEU Fax and the bargaining process together. They even wrote poems and songs about the strike, held teach-ins, and created their own economy—food banks, donations, vouchers, and a hardship policy that helped strikers in exceptional need of financial assistance. The wider labour movement also gathered around the strike, which they saw as the front-line against the Common Sense Revolution. They had pooled $16 million in interest-free loans for the strike, and even provided the union with picket-line training, advice, food, publicity, and more.
The picketers’ relationship to the police was complicated. Cops tried to be understanding of the strike and respected the essential service agreement, but they were still meant to “uphold the law.” An incident occurred where the cops were going to show up and put out the fire pits used by picketers to stay warm. An organizer remembered that they were allowed to barbecue while picketing, but the only food they had was donuts. When the cops showed up, they threw the donuts on the fire pits and told them that they had frozen and were dethawing. The cops left and the fire pits remained lit. However, the union’s relationship to the Ontario Provincial Police would become a lot less complicated soon enough.
The Queen’s Park police riot
On Monday, March 18th, picketers had gathered in Queen’s Park as usual. 5,000 people had arrived early in the morning and had taken positions across the different entrances and streets. The OPP had shown up to escort politicians in and out of the building, and were allowed to do so by the picketers. However, near the Ferguson building, the OPP had set up a chain to control the movement of the picketers. Later, once it was time to escort politicians out of the building, the cops realized the chain was still blocking the way for the police vans to get through—and picketers had gathered near it.
Stephen Giles, a probation officer, was picketing near the chain. When the OPP officers came to clear the chain to make way for their van, they pushed and shoved the picketers, but messed up their own formation. As a result, the cops started hitting people with batons because they saw them within their ranks. Giles was hit on his forehead and pushed to the ground. After he had fallen, he was hit in the rib and with a shield—a fact he does not recall because he had already blacked out. Another picketer remembers sitting next to his body as his head was bleeding, not knowing what to do, while other picketers were being assaulted. David Harris, a 4th grade teacher in Scarborough, was at Queen’s Park with his son to show support to the workers. He was hit twice in the knee and had to find a safe place to rest. Rick Spadafora, a mail clerk for the government, raised his hand to protect himself from baton strikes, and it got fractured in multiple places. At the start of the day, Mike Harris’ plan was to continue the Legislative Assembly’s operations like it was “business as usual.”
The OPP, popularly referred to as “sons of Mitches” because they were used by Premier Mitchell to break the General Motors strike in Oshawa in 1937, effectively brought an end to the strike. David Rapaport says that after the riot, “Harris could see all too clearly that the affair was not helping Ontario’s image—or his government.”
The end of the strike
The strike ended on March 31st, the day that the new collective agreement was ratified by the membership with 95% approval. During the strike, the government had dropped their proposal to remove the job-security language from the deal. Their end goal had been to lay people off faster and introduce more hurdles for severance pay, but this did not come to pass. They had used sketchy methods for negotiating, playing with picketers’ spirits by announcing that a deal was close, delaying an agreement, and blaming the union. The new collective agreement also guaranteed bumps to workers—meaning reassignments and promotions based on seniority—while also raising dental benefits to 1996 rates and improving benefits for unclassified workers.
Workers walked into work on Monday singing “Solidarity Forever,” strike leaders held open the doors as workers walked in, did celebratory pickets around their buildings, hung “no scabs allowed” signs at their offices, and hurrah’d one last time before going back to work.
While some saw the strike as a heroic moment for the labour movement that won many gains for OPSEU workers, some saw it as successful only in weakening, not defeating, the Common Sense Revolution. Nevertheless, Gord Wilson, president of the OFL at the time, thought it was a watershed moment 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.”
This year, OPSEU held its annual convention between April 24th and 27th. They passed several resolutions and constitutional amendments, highlighted the No One Left Behind campaign organized by the Workers’ Action Centre, and the OPSEU leadership expressed excitement about the future.
One of the speakers at the convention was David Rapaport, the participant historian of the 1996 strike who wrote No Justice, No Peace. He spoke about his experience during the strike as an organizer, saying that he never believed the strike would happen until the day it began. Regarding OPSEU negotiations and organizing during the strike, he said: “We were brilliant.”
With Doug Ford still at the helm of the Ontario government and public services under attack—and in the federal context, with Canada Post on the verge of resuming last year’s strike—it’s important to look back at the times workers in this sector have fought back and won. Conservative governments’ strategy to privatize parts of the public sector is to underfund, slander, and attack it. However, workers—with our support— are capable of keeping the public sector alive to the benefit of not only themselves, but the entire province.
David Rapaport’s book on the OPSEU strike is available to borrow at the Toronto Public Library and to purchase at McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Photos: OPSEU
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