Support for Striking Windsor Salt Workers Growing Amongst Teachers and Education Workers
During the weekend of March 10-12, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) held their annual meetings in Toronto, in-person, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of delegates from every town and community in the province attended to discuss their concerns, establish the respective organization’s priorities for the coming year, and elect provincial officials.
Teachers from Windsor-Essex of both unions used the occasion to inform as many of their peers as possible from across the province about the resistance of the Windsor Salt workers to the bullying of Stone Canyon Holdings Inc. and the law firm Jackson Lewis that they hired to try and break this resistance, as well as about the fact that the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan holds a significant stake in Stone Canyon Holdings Inc.
Some 700 leaflets from Empower Yourself Now were distributed to delegates of the in-person conventions, and actions were also taken to share information online to as many teachers and education workers as possible, in an effort to make the fight of the Windsor Salt workers a fight of the entire labour movement in Ontario. In this vein, there was also distribution done at a public meeting of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council where hundreds of activists and working people gathered to hear about the experiences of Amazon workers in forming a union in Staten Island, New York, in the face of Amazon’s union-busting practices.
Initial reports indicate that the action has led teachers and education workers to ask that their pension fund support the striking workers in some way and not be used to facilitate union-busting in Canada. The initiative affirms the importance of working people empowering themselves by speaking for themselves on matters of concern so that others are informed and can make a contribution.
Now, the challenge is to continue building public opinion so that governments at all levels do their duty to oppose the attacks on workers and their communities from the U.S. The leaflet distributed can be found here for those who wish to join the campaign to inform as many people as possible. (It can be printed out or send out digitally). PDF