LONDON (December 6 - 11, 1995) - In a media release responding to the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL)-led plan to target London for an illegal one-day strike, Freedom Party leader Jack Plant described the action as evidence that unions are, in practice, "political lobby groups which have become impotent as representative organizations for their members." He called upon OFL president Gordon Wilson to cancel the planned walkout in favour of a more positive and constructive approach to labour concerns. Led by the OFL, a coalition of unions targeted London for the illegal strike on Monday, December 11, as a protest against the Harris government's recent changes to Ontario's labour legislation. News reports suggested that up to 10,000 union members from other cities converged on the city that day, though the figure was in dispute.
Referring to the OFL's tactic as "evidence of a dying movement", Fp leader Plant condemned the action as a disservice to its own members: "To conceal the lack of support coming from their grass-roots membership, they've been forced to target a single city. That way they can import union members from outside the community to create the APPEARANCE of widespread support. I don't believe that most union members think an illegal walkout is the right thing to do. Why pick on the public, workers, and business? It's suicidal for the labour movement."
Plant's sentiment was echoed by many community leaders and citizens. The London Chamber of Commerce called the December 11 protest an event that "will cost workers money, force them to break the law, and will damage relations with local employers. And all of this to protest a democratically elected government fulfilling its election promises." (Business Advocate, December 10, 1995)
"They make no sense even from the standpoint of organized labor's own economic and political interests," said Fp member and University of Western Ontario History professor Kenneth Hilborn, in a December 7 letter to Western News.
"Being on the losing side in an election, and thus in the making of government policy, provides no justification for any person or organized element in a democratic society to obstruct society's normal functioning," he concluded. "By defying this principle... the consequences of their conduct will be exactly the opposite of what they supposedly want."
That very principle was also the subject of Plant's December 4 letter to OFL president Gordon Wilson:
"As leader of Freedom Party," Plant wrote Wilson, "I'd like to let you know that we, like yourselves, have many differences with the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. However, we are fundamentally committed to the concept that the cornerstone of any free society is the right to peacefully disagree with one another. We use persuasion, and not confrontation, to get our points across to the public and to governments.
"It is in this spirit that Freedom Party is launching a door-to-door information campaign reflecting our concerns with what we believe to be a misdirected effort on the part of the OFL. It is our hope," said Plant, "that reason will prevail over anger and confusion."
In Fp's distributed Ontario Information Bulletin, Fp vice-president Lloyd Walker reiterated the futility of the action. He pointed to the irony that in an era when people should be looking for "win-win" situations, the OFL and its coalition of unions grabbed hold of the only "lose-lose-lose" option available.
"(The union leaders) have allowed their anger and frustration to make their decisions for them," said Walker.
In addition to calling for cancellation of the walkout, Fp's bulletin challenged the mandate of union leaders to undertake an illegal strike by reprinting many unsupportive comments publicly made by union workers themselves. The bulletin also contained a brief excerpt from a radio open-line debate in which Fp president Robert Metz challenged Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) president Buzz Hargrove's claim that he represented "all" working people. (See "LABOUR PROTESTS...")
With the only organized opposition to the illegal strike having come from Freedom Party and its affiliated groups and members, the failure of the London Free Press to report on these activities - in its own home town - created a serious imbalance and bias in its news coverage of the event. Though the paper is certainly entitled to its sympathetic editorial support of organized labour's agenda, its credibility as a source of news is questionable.
"Like the unions on which it reported," commented Metz, "the London Free Press appears to have devolved from its legitimate primary activity - reporting the news - to just another lobby group with an unstated agenda supporting only those groups and individuals who want to continue feeding at the public trough. The paper apparently does not want its readers to be aware of alternate choices, options, opinions, or activities which threaten the status quo."
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last updated on April 28, 2002
