It was a two-day festival of the op. pressed. Toronto on October 25 and 26 was positive, peaceful, upbeat and disciplined .. at times boisterous, at others eerily tranquil. It was the biggest labour shutdown of a Canadian metropolis, fol. lowed by the largest march and rally in this country's history.
Exhibiting tremendous poise and self. confidence, hundreds of thousands of unionists and their social movement allies said NO to multi-billion dollar Ontario provincial government. Planned cuts to healthcare, education, and social serv. ices, to environmental deregulation and wholesale privatisation of public institutions, and to widespread attacks on la. bour and consumer rights had aroused this massive opposition.
Apology
Support for the protests was so broad that reactionary Ontario's Conservative Premier Mike Harris felt compelled to apologise for initially underestimating the huge turn-out.
Harris' shoot-from-the lip frustration was not surprising. Hundreds of thou. sands of workers had defied employer intimidation tactics and joined in cross. picketing and protest rallies on the Friday, or simply stayed at home, in all lohn Lister TWENTY years ago, one of the biggest-ever demonstrations on a working day united 13 trade unions and mobilised over 80,000 through the streets of London in opposition to cuts in welfare services.
Most of the unions involved were from the public sector, although the white collar engineering union TASS and the NUM lent their support.
The protest was unusual in that right wing union leaders were cases sacrificing a day's pay to register their opposition to the prevailing big business agenda.
On that day there was no public trans. port, one hundred construction sites were stilled, most government offices were closed or offered little service, cultural and recreational institutions were shut.
College shutdown
Colleges and universities did not function, elementary and secondary schools had few teachers and fewer students. Hospitals operated on holiday staffing levels, and many factories were Thousands of workers, accompanied by family and friends, attended noisy, angry, music-filled rallies .. at the Toronto Stock Exchange, at the Education Ministry, and at city halls through. out the city.
Police stood by quietly on the side. lines as thousands of pickets and hundreds of trained union/community-designated marshals took charge, shutting down business as. usual. For once Toronto looked and felt like a "union town".
On Saturday morning an immense crowd gathered at the lakeshore, near the Canadian National Exhibition grounds, and began a 4.2 kilometre AT march to the provincial legislature. It took nearly three hours for the parade, which included over 200 social justice and community organisations along with dozens of unions, to pass en route the Metro Convention Centre where the Conservative Party held its annual policy conference.
The gigantic rally filled the large grassy park, the surrounding roadway, and the wide expanse of University Ave. nue boulevard, southward for ten blocks or more at its height. The crowd, already in a decidedly festive mood, was treated to performances by various folk-rock stars.
Way forward
Speeches by labour and community leaders extolled the event as a triumph of coalition-building, but had almost nothing to say about plans for the future of the struggle against the Tory cut. backs.
In all, the Metro Days of Action activities, which spanned six days and in. cluded an anti-poverty tent city dubbed "Harrisville" sat up just behind the Leg. islature, had a theme: "Organise, Educate, Resist".
The key test now will be to ensure that the leadership is forced to build on this success rather than allow the enthusiasm to ebb all too quickly away. conference in the Philippines, and head instead for the Labour conference, where he defiantly announced his intention to negotiate a loan.
The scale of the public spending cuts demanded by the IMF (initially demanding an additional £5 billion on top of Healey's earlier cutbacks) was so great that it threatened to split the Labour cabinet.
Callaghan deliberately dragged out the negotiations throughout October and November as he tried to pull together sufficient support and bargain down the scale of the cuts required.