Big labour is in big trouble in Canada’s biggest province.
Morale is down. Unionization is down.
And members are increasingly down on each other: The Ontario Federation of Labour is bleeding support from several key unions that boycotted its latest convention and are still withholding funds.
The labour movement is a house divided at the worst possible time in Ontario politics. The Legislature has also been a House divided since the Oct. 6 election, and now a resurgent Progressive Conservative party is targeting big labour.
PC Leader Tim Hudak’s daily ritual in Question Period is to demand the minority Liberal government freeze wages, fix the arbitration system and fend off union influence over apprenticeship rules. Against the backdrop of this Tory trifecta, labour leaders are too busy attacking one another to defend against the frontal assault coming their way.
The OFL once loomed large over Ontario politics. Today, the province’s umbrella union for workers — supposedly a showpiece for labour solidarity — is a shadow of its former self. Its finances are in a shambles and its flamboyant president, Sid Ryan, is in bad odour with much of the movement.
The powerful Ontario Public Sector Employees Union (OPSEU) boycotted last month’s convention. The Ontario Nurses Association also stayed away, as did the Service Employees International Union (local 100).
“People don’t appear to have the ability to put principles before personalities — Sid included,” fumes OPSEU’s Warren (Smokey) Thomas, who has taken his 135,000 members out for now. He begrudges Ryan for “spending other people’s money you don’t have.”
And he’s annoyed that Ryan left town for a vacation cruise at a time of both internal and external strife: “He leaves the house of labour in a f-ing horrible mess, and he takes off for two weeks?”
Linda Haslam-Stroud, who represents more than 50,000 registered nurses, complains bitterly that Ryan “marginalized two women officers” on the OFL executive, and puts himself ahead of the membership.
“Sid is interested in getting out a press release about himself every other day,” she complains. “He did not speak for Ontario’s nurses.”
Like OPSEU, the ONA is worried about growing attacks from the Tories who keep repeating the message that public sector workers are doing better than everyone else because arbitrators are handing them lavish increases.
In fact, the province’s 50,000 hospital nurses will be getting 0 per cent increases for the next two years, courtesy of an arbitrator who reflected the precise amounts budgeted by Queen’s Park. Government wage settlements are now trending at 1.6 per cent, below the private sector (1.9 per cent) and municipalities (2.4).
Haslam-Stroud views Hudak with the same contempt she reserves for Ryan, noting that the Tory leader has never sought a meeting with the nurses’ union. “He has a very clear mantra,” she told me. “He’s going to bash unions and bash the working people of Ontario and nurses.”
As for Ryan, he called in (twice) from his southern vacation to say that reports of the OFL’s demise are premature. Internal union politics have always been bitter, and his umbrella organization still speaks for more than 1 million workers — even if a third of them are withholding their dues.
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” he says of OPSEU’s boycott. But he dismisses the departure of the nurses’ union as political bad blood: “Linda is closer to the Liberals than I am, and so she gets concerned about my media profile.”
And so with Hudak doubling down on unions, union leaders are increasingly down on each other. Yet Ryan remains unperturbed, confident he can count on a powerful tonic to revive a labour movement in decline:
The more the Tories attack unions, the more likely they are to unite under his OFL leadership.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
Morale is down. Unionization is down.
And members are increasingly down on each other: The Ontario Federation of Labour is bleeding support from several key unions that boycotted its latest convention and are still withholding funds.
The labour movement is a house divided at the worst possible time in Ontario politics. The Legislature has also been a House divided since the Oct. 6 election, and now a resurgent Progressive Conservative party is targeting big labour.
PC Leader Tim Hudak’s daily ritual in Question Period is to demand the minority Liberal government freeze wages, fix the arbitration system and fend off union influence over apprenticeship rules. Against the backdrop of this Tory trifecta, labour leaders are too busy attacking one another to defend against the frontal assault coming their way.
The OFL once loomed large over Ontario politics. Today, the province’s umbrella union for workers — supposedly a showpiece for labour solidarity — is a shadow of its former self. Its finances are in a shambles and its flamboyant president, Sid Ryan, is in bad odour with much of the movement.
The powerful Ontario Public Sector Employees Union (OPSEU) boycotted last month’s convention. The Ontario Nurses Association also stayed away, as did the Service Employees International Union (local 100).
“People don’t appear to have the ability to put principles before personalities — Sid included,” fumes OPSEU’s Warren (Smokey) Thomas, who has taken his 135,000 members out for now. He begrudges Ryan for “spending other people’s money you don’t have.”
And he’s annoyed that Ryan left town for a vacation cruise at a time of both internal and external strife: “He leaves the house of labour in a f-ing horrible mess, and he takes off for two weeks?”
Linda Haslam-Stroud, who represents more than 50,000 registered nurses, complains bitterly that Ryan “marginalized two women officers” on the OFL executive, and puts himself ahead of the membership.
“Sid is interested in getting out a press release about himself every other day,” she complains. “He did not speak for Ontario’s nurses.”
Like OPSEU, the ONA is worried about growing attacks from the Tories who keep repeating the message that public sector workers are doing better than everyone else because arbitrators are handing them lavish increases.
In fact, the province’s 50,000 hospital nurses will be getting 0 per cent increases for the next two years, courtesy of an arbitrator who reflected the precise amounts budgeted by Queen’s Park. Government wage settlements are now trending at 1.6 per cent, below the private sector (1.9 per cent) and municipalities (2.4).
Haslam-Stroud views Hudak with the same contempt she reserves for Ryan, noting that the Tory leader has never sought a meeting with the nurses’ union. “He has a very clear mantra,” she told me. “He’s going to bash unions and bash the working people of Ontario and nurses.”
As for Ryan, he called in (twice) from his southern vacation to say that reports of the OFL’s demise are premature. Internal union politics have always been bitter, and his umbrella organization still speaks for more than 1 million workers — even if a third of them are withholding their dues.
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” he says of OPSEU’s boycott. But he dismisses the departure of the nurses’ union as political bad blood: “Linda is closer to the Liberals than I am, and so she gets concerned about my media profile.”
And so with Hudak doubling down on unions, union leaders are increasingly down on each other. Yet Ryan remains unperturbed, confident he can count on a powerful tonic to revive a labour movement in decline:
The more the Tories attack unions, the more likely they are to unite under his OFL leadership.
Origin
Source: Toronto Star
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