Seven Oaks Magazine.

On Monday, October 17, 20 000 teachers, union members and other supporters shut down the provincial capital of Victoria and marched on the legislature. Within 48 hours, it was clear that the teachers of British Columbia and their union, the BCTF, were on the verge of becoming victims of an institutionally driven betrayal of enormous proportions in terms of the size of the opportunity that was being squandered.

After four years of battering from the wrecking ball of neo-liberalism, working people in British Columbia finally had a cause, one that ignited public support behind the teachers and dispelled the defeatism that had settled over the province. The slanderous statements from government spokespersons about a union and its members failed to find traction, nor was the logical absurdity of legislating a “collective agreement” with Bill 12 lost on the people of BC.

Big business' self-serving statement of alarm -- to the purported threat to the rule of law and to orderliness in society posed by the organizing of an illegal strike -- was met with ridicule by a public that had become acutely aware of the extent of the damage done to education by the BC Liberals. Public expressions of support for the teachers came from the most unlikely quarters. To quote just one example, a jewelry store in Victoria posted a notice on their door that read: "We support workers' rights." Significantly, the business owner who composed this message had, apparently, moved beyond the specifics of education to express support for a social class that he doesn't belong to.

Clearly, in terms of the general public, the situation in BC was ripe with opportunity. The teachers’ strike brought the glaring deficiencies of an education system mutilated by the realization of this government's philosophy in practice into sharp focus. To start applying this lesson to health care and other government services was hardly a leap.

It was obvious -- from the mood of the crowds who attended rallies throughout the province, to the squads of striking TWU workers who visited BCTF picket lines, and to the Victoria postal workers who were suspended for five days for the one-day job action in support of teachers -- that rank and file trade unionists were ready to shut the province down.

With the notable exception of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the BCTF and a few other unions, the leaders of the labour movement were mired in their traditional perspectives and lacking any vision. With principled public support at unprecedented levels, these leaders reacted predictably.

For over four years the provincial government has bulldozed their way through hard-won worker's rights and social welfare with hardly any opposition. The most significant of the exceptions to this was the HEU strike in April 2004. But the outright sell-out of that struggle in May 2004 left a residue of bitterness. The support for the BCTF was enormous – larger even than the support for the Solidarity Movement in 1983. If we needed the proverbial cherry on the top it came in the form of active support from the Canadian Teachers Federation, the teachers in Mexico and Guatemala who demonstrated outside their respective Canadian Embassies and, sweetest of all, from the teachers of South Africa who likened our government’s treatment of teachers to that of the old apartheid government.

The false note in all this was the institutional reality of the trade unions and their federation. Over time the once militant unions have evolved to play their assigned role in balancing the desire of the exploiters to maximize exploitation and of the exploited to minimize it. Their role has become one of ensuring an orderly workforce in a system they have bought into. A general strike does not figure in this waltz. Railing against individual leaders is a futile response when what is needed is institutional change.

Two objections were made in response to the call for a general strike that swept through the crowd at every rally. Not voiced in this round of the struggle but always in the background, was the oft-repeated statement of union bureaucrats: "We're not in the business of bringing down the government.” The other objection was that the call for a general strike did not constitute a clear plan of action.

In response to both of these positions, we could have said to our government, “You're playing foul so we're walking off the field until you come to your senses.” In other words, with solid backing from the BC Federation of Labour (BC Fed) to round out the equation, the workers of BC could have mounted a general strike focussed on a single demand: the repeal of Bill 12.

Had the general strike achieved this, the entire neo-liberal agenda of the government and its corporate backers would have experienced a major setback. Any future attempts to curtail workers' rights or reduce welfare benefits would threaten to bring masses of people onto the streets to shut down the province once more. Even more significantly, should the NDP come to power after this government’s term ends, it would face the same determination from the workers of the province to act in defence of any threat to their rights and benefits.

In the aftermath of the strike there were a number of vicious personal attacks on the leader of the BC Fed, Jim Sinclair. These attacks ignored the fact that Jim Sinclair does not have the power to force member unions like the BCGEU to take any actions they are unwilling to take. Having become institutions that balance the demands of workers with the demands of capitalism, in order to guarantee orderly labour relations, the leaders can behave only as they did. Simply changing individual leaders will not address this problem.

Besides the attacks, there were also a host of opinions circulated about the gains that the teachers' strike achieved. These analyses are rooted in the fact that while the demands that they went out on have not been realized, the experience of the strike has provided eloquent testimony to the power of solidarity as the critical tool for struggle. The reality behind this government's agenda and the damaging consequences of what it has done so far is clearer in people's minds than it has ever been. Most significantly, this strike has advanced the struggle of workers in this province dramatically, despite the fact that the BCTF's demands have not been fully realized.

The primary task for the immediate future is to strengthen the unprecedented solidarity that the teachers built, both with other unions and with the public at large. In addition, we need to capitalize on the growing understanding of the interconnectedness of education, medical services and other government services as targets of neo-liberal globalization that simultaneously seeks to increase the exploitation of workers everywhere.

Finally, we need to address the one issue that could have overcome the institutional and bureaucratic problems that made a general strike impossible this time round: The need for a functioning rank and file network that will allow the workers of BC to unite in action irrespective of their leaders’ resistance.

Part two of this commentary, next week, will explore the options for building on the fallout from the teachers strike in greater detail.

Lawrence Boxall is a member of the International Socialists and Jews for a Just Peace.