The Line's Naughty List: Education is essential. We don't treat it that way

The status quo does not sound like a system in good working order, and it definitely isn't of the view that “strikes are a last resort.”

We at The Line are, we admit, often a bit on the grumpy side. But there are wonderful, happy stories worth celebrating, and in the final week before Christmas, we celebrated a half-dozen of them here. Now, though, it’s time to get back to doing what we do best: pointing out all the bad things that we really ought to be fixing!

Today: Mitch Heimpel on why our rhetoric on the importance of education is obviously out of alignment with our actual record of putting kids first.

By: Mitch Heimpel

The best collective agreements are always settled in negotiations. In the private sector, both employers and unions view lockouts, strikes and other actions as bargaining failures. They are to be avoided. They are a last resort. 

The reason is competition. Prolonged work stoppages endanger jobs as competitors step up to do work, and fulfill contracts that otherwise might have gone to — or stayed with — the company experiencing the stoppage. The best strikes are the ones that are never threatened, because the market enforces a kind of competitive discipline. 

I'm a union guy because I've seen employees abused by unscrupulous employment practices. "Temporary" placements in certain workplaces that were supposed to last weeks stretched into months and years as companies forced employees at the very bottom of the wage ladder into a kind of Hunger Games to get the one permanent contract that might come available every quarter. It's brutal.

I'm a union guy because I very much remember what it was like to make $11.40 an hour, and have to wait on an email, or a call, or a tap on the shoulder from the temp agency supervisor in my workplace that informed me that I was coming back the next week. I want every worker's time to be valued, and will never begrudge a unionized worker for a single benefit, wage bump or pension increase for which they have freely bargained because I vividly remember wishing I had a union. 

Now, that having been said, let's talk about labour negotiations in the education system.

They're busted. This needs to be fixed. And making education an essential service might be the only way to do that. But no one wants to do that.

Since 1997, by right, students in Ontario have had a right to an education in the school section, zone, or district in which they are a resident. That right is fundamentally why labour negotiations in the education system are, and have to be, different from other collective bargaining situations. In the private sector, nobody has a right to your product. And, if you violate a binding contract, the other party can take legal action.

But our kids don't have that option. It's impractical to imagine a group of 10-year-olds hiring counsel to bring a suit and demand the province enforce a right that it granted them under the law. Also, imagine being a parent in the Rainbow District School Board around Sudbury with two kids, of different ages, that have been in full-day schooling since at least 2011. It's entirely possible they have known labour disruptions in 2012, 2015, 2020 and now this year. That's all before we talk about the disruptions caused by COVID. Now, Rainbow is just one example. Other boards have known similar levels of disruption, but not all of them. Nevertheless, this does not sound like a system in good working order, and it definitely isn't of the view that “strikes are a last resort.”

We know that education disruption and learning loss has a long-term effect on kids. Ontario's COVID-19 science table published a paper that clearly demonstrated how the pandemic affected the learning trajectory of students. There are a number of American studies that already document the economic impact of the misalignment between the end of the work day and the end of the school day, to say nothing of the overall misalignment between the calendar for most workers, and the length of the school year. 

I don't think anyone is willing to argue that students don't have a right to an education. Workers, also, have the right to fair wages, good working conditions and benefits that reflect their time, training and commitment. We have to be able to do all those things. The problem is, in Ontario, this is an obvious failure. We can’t just state our ideal version of reality: we’ll avoid strikes! We actually have to look at the historical record. We aren’t avoiding strikes.

Governments are typically loathe to hand out the essential service designation to workers because it sends disputes, especially over wages, to arbitration which they believe results in increases to wages and benefits. Often what this actually is, is the government attempting to maintain some leverage in wage and benefit conversations, so that they can exchange increases for changes to working conditions. 

But a number of unions that are subjected to the interest arbitration system actually fight to maintain it in its current form. Clearly, there exists a belief in some corners that it is an appropriate system for defending the collective rights of workers, while ensuring the continuity of service for a public that relies on it. 

Pay might go up at a very slightly faster rate. But the idea that we're suddenly going to start seeing massive wage increases awarded in arbitration is probably more political talking point than reality. That slight premium we end up paying in arbitration is essentially the cost of keeping kids in class.

When we decided kids had a right to an education, we put a value on them being in classrooms. There has to be a value, and perhaps a cost, to keeping them there. The education system is an essential service. We aren’t treating it like one. And that has to change.

Mitch Heimpel has served Conservative cabinet ministers and party leaders at the provincial and federal levels, and is currently the director of campaigns and government relations at Enterprise Canada.

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