Right to strike a fundamental human right

Government should have been commended, not blamed, for role in college teachers dispute

This is response to your editorial of Dec. 15, headlined ‘College students deserve better’.

In this editorial you make several statements that have disturbing resonance. You say “the system failed thousands of college students” and “It must not do so again.” By your emphasis on what you characterize as “devastating fallout for countless students” you lead your reader to conclude that college strikes ought to be banned somehow.

You suggest that many Ontarians “blame” the government for the strike and your tepid defence is that the strike was legal. You make no attempt to explain why the strike is legal and why the government should have been commended, not blamed, for honouring the right of college teachers to strike.

It would have been appropriate to remind Ontarians that the Supreme Court has recently affirmed the right to strike as both a fundamental human right and a constitutionally protected right. In its Saskatchewan Federation of Labour decision the Court reiterated the position that it made clear in its Health Services decision of 2007 that Freedom of Association, of which the right to strike is an inherent aspect, is essential in realizing the Charter values of “human dignity, equality, liberty and respect for the autonomy of the person and the enhancement of democracy.”

Your readers are entitled to know that the rights to organize, bargain and strike have been affirmed globally as human rights by nearly all of the world’s nations including, prominently, Canada. These rights are not simply a political choice that may be given or taken away according to the whim of the party in power. They are no less sacred in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the Supreme Court than the right to equity in employment that you frequently, and rightfully, defend or commend others for promoting or defending.

Without the right to strike working people are vulnerable to arbitrary, dehumanizing behaviour by employers. Without that right, labour is reduced to the status of commodity to be exploited and discarded as the boss sees fit. Without that right, labour is weak and cannot stand as a force against the inexorable growth in inequality that is leading us back to the undemocratic, classbased oppression of the past.

The International Labor Organization has been charged by the world community to establish, promote and defend the rights of labour to the benefit of all humanity. Toward that end the ILO has developed a set of standards regarding the right to strike. The fundamental principle is that strikes must be honoured for all workers except those in occupations so critical that withdrawal of their labour would harm “the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.”

Police, the military and hospital workers are essential. Teachers, the ILO has emphatically decided in the course of commenting on several cases including many from Canada, are not.

That does not mean that students who are harmed by education strikes do not matter. They do and we should seek to put in place systems that result in few education strikes. But education strikes do not endanger life, health or safety and so must be honoured for the greater good that results from respect for fundamental worker rights. Indeed, it is very likely that should the Ontario government’s back-to-work order be tested in the courts, it would be found unconstitutional.

If the Ontario government cannot legally and ethically impose a no-strike system on college teachers, it may negotiate such a system. Arbitration in one form or another is a viable alternative even though it has a number of side-effects unwanted by one side or the other. But, for college teachers, arbitration must be negotiated not imposed.

It has been my experience, knowing teachers at many levels and being one myself, that student-welfare is high on the priority list of educators everywhere. With good will on both sides a solution respectful of students, teachers and an empowered working class capable of defending democratic values will be found.