On Oct. 27, UCP Premier Danielle Smith carried out one of the most severe attacks on the trade union movement we have ever seen. She rammed through Bill 2: Back to School Act, taking away the right to strike of 51,000 teachers and ending a strike that had gone on for three weeks. She also used the notwithstanding clause to bypass constitutionally protected collective bargaining rights, imposing a contract on them for the next four years.
The leadership of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) responded the next morning, stating, “This legislation is a gross violation of the foundational principles of collective bargaining.” They failed, however, to call for defiance of this egregious attack and said, ”[the union] foresees that classes will resume on Wednesday, October 29.”
The result of this saga will be a future where public education in Alberta degrades to lows that were unthinkable in the past. Teachers will quit, children will suffer, and the lives of ordinary people will be worse.
In their communication, the ATA explain that they will “pursue all legal alternatives to challenge Bill 2’s egregious assault on the collective bargaining rights of teachers and, by extension, all workers.” They continue, “In this effort, we anticipate that we will be supported by organized labour, civil society and ordinary citizens. This fight has just begun.”
To teachers, this must read like a cruel joke. There is no way to challenge the legislation. The point of the notwithstanding clause is that it overrides Charter rights, thus protecting legislation from legal challenges. So the result is that Smith has been able to violate trade union rights, setting a dangerous precedent. In other words, this is a defeat.
Should not have folded
This result was not inevitable. The teachers, supported by the wider trade union movement, could have fought back and won.
On the Thursday prior, over 30,000 people rallied in Edmonton in support of the teachers in what was the largest demonstration in the history of the province. The population was clearly behind the teachers. The mood of teachers at the rally was angry and ready to defy any attempts to take away their right to strike.
The Common Front, a pact of most of Alberta’s unions representing over 300,000 workers, positioned themselves to defend teachers, and the right to strike. Even NDP MP Heather Macpherson told the author of this article, “if they invoke the notwithstanding clause, there should be a general strike.”
As well, recent precedent shows how to defeat attacks. First, the Ontario education workers organized with CUPE Ontario defied a back-to-work order imposed using the notwithstanding clause by Doug Ford in 2022. The wider labour movement threatened a general strike and Ford backed down, thus defeating the government.
More recently, in August of this year, Air Canada flight attendants defied a back-to-work order from the federal minister, demonstrating in practice that these laws amount to nothing when the working class moves into action.
Weakness invites aggression
All throughout this strike, the leadership of the ATA have shied away from confrontation. The fact of the matter is that rank-and-file teachers dragged the union leaders into the strike, rejecting two contracts by nearly 90 per cent. Once the strike was underway, the ATA leaders refrained from even organizing picket lines, reducing the effectiveness of the strike and sapping the mobilizations of rank-and-file participation and energy.
For his part, Alberta Federation of Labour president and Common Front chair Gil McGowan threatened the Smith government. “Don’t you dare press the notwithstanding clause button,” he said. “An unprecedented action is going to lead to an unprecedented response from our labour movement.”
In an interview on Oct. 27, Gil referenced the struggle of CUPE Ontario, where the notwithstanding clause was withdrawn because the labour movement threatened a general strike. Presented with an identical situation, Gil had a formula in place, and one role to play. The Common Front needed to launch a general strike the moment the legislation was passed and the notwithstanding clause invoked.
But Danielle Smith has called the bluff of McGowan and the trade union leaders, and the general strike has failed to materialize.
Instead, Gil and the Common Front have made vague insinuations, they have deliberated, deliberated again, and are at this moment right now probably still deliberating.
The mood just a few days ago was electric. Teachers chanted “Defy! Defy!” at demonstrations. Already this mood is being transformed into disappointment and demoralization.
The threat of a general strike is quickly evaporating. How is the labour movement going to organize a general strike for teachers’ right to strike, when they’ve already been defeated?
This whole saga demonstrates something that Marxists have always explained: weakness invites aggression.
The vacillating trade union leaders proved to Smith and the UCP that ultimately, they were not prepared to back up their words with actions. The more weakness they showed, the more the ruling class felt emboldened to attack the unions, thus eliminating a barrier in the way of their profit.
The result will be that Smith and her government will be emboldened to go on the offensive.
Already the leaders of far-right factions of the UCP are foaming at the mouth, calling for right-to-work laws, and making union dues optional, something the UCP floated at its party convention.
This defeat places the rest of the labour movement on the defensive, and it will be a bitter struggle for workers to defend themselves and their organizations in the next period. If the UCP can enforce their will against the strongest union in the province, they will be emboldened to try to do so against every other union.
These events also show why we need communist leadership of the labour movement. While Gil McGowan and Jason Schilling make references to Air Canada, the events of 2022 in Ontario, or Operation Solidarity, they are not prepared to back up words with action.
This is a class war. Today, the ruling class is making us pay for the crisis of capitalism by destroying public education today; tomorrow it will be something else. We need to bring back the revolutionary traditions of the Canadian labour movement.
This is what the Revolutionary Communist Party is fighting for. The teachers’ strike is over, but there are big class battles on the horizon, and we must prepare for them.
