This is not just about wanting to have kids in school!
On the November 2 edition of Exit 425, I asked Michael Barrett which of 5 proposed ideas he felt might be the real reason the Ontario Provincial Government has produced and passed Bill 28, now the Keeping Students in Class Act.
Here is the audio, because you know you want to listen! https://open.spotify.com/episode/35B6JZc6Y0FkNC07REIljB?si=61c90cbae174454e
Here are my proposals:
Posturing in an attempt to appear ruthlessly tough in order to mitigate the demands of labour groups that are up next in the negotiation process? (Whose contract demands will not be anything close to the opening position of CUPE.)
Is the truth that these conservatives want to create a crisis and so much anger that in fact, the whole education sector goes off, allowing the government to pocket millions of dollars of unpaid salaries?
With the details in this act to waterproof it against constitutional challenges….is this the template to put an end to collective bargaining in Education?
Is this the first main move to turn education into the 407; sell the system off to the highest bidder to operate our schools?
The fact that Bill 28 makes it clear there will be no other negotiations at the provincial or local level once it is given royal assent….does this make it easier to eliminate school boards; something prominent PCs like Deb Hutton support?
There are so many other possibilities.
Financially break the unions and crush them? (fits with scenario 2, above)
Force even more on-line courses into a student’s credit load and allow private companies to provide those courses?
Drive even more contract changes for education workers, especially teachers. Lower salaries; reduced pension costs; ensure that fear dominates the employment relationship between the government and education workers (presumeably in an effort to minimize demands and the risk of strike).
Teachers particularly, are required to be members of a federation or association (which have evolved into looking much more union-like in the last 25 years) by provincial law. The reality is, an act of the legislature (like Bill 28; The Keeping Students in Class Act) is all that is required to end all of that. But they clearly do not want to to appear that obvious, if that in fact is what they are attempting to accomplish.
Education workers, and labourers of all types are desperate to put an end to what is happening. Already we have seen the declaration that this was the only path to keep students in class, foregoing more than a week of honest negotioations.
Only time will tell.
