CBC Strike Coverage is Anti-Worker Propaganda
CUPE Local 5047, the union that represents 1,800 striking Halifax school support workers, announced June 14 that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE). No deals have been released pending ratification of the deal by union members, who will vote on the agreement in the coming days. Results are expected to be announced by Sunday.
The strike, which started five weeks ago, followed members’ rejection of a previous tentative agreement that included a 6.5% wage increase over three years, well below inflation. The HRCE around this time also held a recruitment fair at this time for non-teaching casual staff to potentially replace unionized workers, whose salaries were already below the cost of living in Halifax. As Fightback wrote in its May 31 strike report: “The employer tabled a tentative agreement that was far too low, and placed support workers in a situation where they could accept poverty wages or strike. This is no choice—the workers had no real option but to strike for better pay.”
You wouldn’t know this from the CBC’s report on the tentative deal, which is a perfect example of the hostile way that the bourgeois media cover strikes (see also: the capitalist propaganda offensive against the recent PSAC strike). The reasons why Halifax school support workers went on strike is buried near the end of the article, written by Michael Gorman. What is given precedence, as in all strike coverage in the bourgeois media, is how the strike is disruptive and inconveniences people. In this case, the CBC wrote:
During the strike, hundreds of students with disabilities have been unable to attend school. Although the Halifax Regional Centre for Education has been able to hire some replacement workers and parents have been allowed into schools to provide support, it has not been enough to get all students back into classrooms.
The strike also shut down the pre-primary program for Halifax-area schools, resulting in 3,000 additional students not being able to attend classes.
There’s another word for “replacement workers”: scabs. The CBC innocently presents scabs crossing picket lines as just a way to “get all students back into classrooms.” Let’s be clear: there is no greater crime in the labour movement than crossing a picket line, which weakens strikes by helping the employer continue operations.
To be fair, the CBC mentions in its subheading for this section that the school support workers “love the kids”. But we see this kind of coverage in every strike, primarily emphasizing how the strike inconveniences people. Of course a strike is disruptive. It’s supposed to be disruptive. The only power workers have to fight for better wages and working conditions is to withhold their labour. It’s this disruption that puts pressure on the employer to return to the bargaining table with a better offer.
In this case, however, the way the CBC describes the strike inconveniencing people is particularly insidious. The CBC would have us believe that by going on strike, school support workers are not just hurting children, but hurting disabled children.
The truth is that blame for children not being able to school falls squarely on the employer, not the workers. The HRCE forced school support workers, who were already struggling to pay the bills, to strike by offering them poverty wages. When the workers walked off the job, the employer—backed by the government and media—turned around and accused workers of hurting children. No, the HRCE hurt children by trying to force the workers who support those children into poverty.
The CBC doesn’t stop there, though. As much as I expect anti-worker propaganda in the capitalist media, this article is on a whole new level. The CBC quotes one parent. Here’s the one they chose to quote:
Kevin Cunningham has a son in Grade 3 who has not been able to attend school during the strike. He said the situation has been been disruptive.
"He thrives on routine, so he needs that kind of consistency," Cunningham said in an interview. "He needs the activity. He needs to be included."
Cunningham has argued a strike that results in a segment of students being unable to attend school amounts to a violation of their human rights. There should have been a plan in place to ensure all students could continue attending school during the strike, he said.
"We think it's worth pursuing — the human rights angle — if for any other reason just to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Whether that is the end result I don't know, but it needs to be an issue."
The one parent quoted by the CBC tells us that the strike violated children’s human rights, but sidesteps the question of who is responsible for this strike in the first place: the employer. Instead of helping end the strike by supporting the workers, Cunningham says that a strike should only be allowed to happen if children can continue attending school. Who will do the work of striking school workers? By definition, scabs. That's what's really being said here.
No one wants children out of school, least of all the workers who support them every day. The HRCE was entirely to blame by threatening workers who support children with poverty, leaving them no alternative but to strike. The way to get kids back in school, as to solve any disruption caused by a strike, is simple: support the workers. Pressure the employer to get back to the bargaining table and give workers a better deal, like a contract that includes a living wage.
Cunningham does not speak for all parents, many of whom came out in support of the strikers. A large number of parents and students joined CUPE 5047 on the picket lines. Credit to Rebecca Lau of Global News, whose report actually interviewed people on the pickets:
Heather Langley, whose daughter Lucy is in Grade 5 at Burton Ettinger Elementary, was among those supporting the striking workers.
Lucy has special needs and relies on the aid of an EPA [educational program assistant] in order to attend school.
“She can’t be left alone even for a moment. She needs support with feeding, drinking, toileting, diapering, communication,” explained Langley.
Lucy was born with a rare syndrome which has impacted her physical and intellectual development. She also has autism, is non-verbal and has a severe form of epilepsy.
Langley said the EPAs go above and beyond and even credits them for helping her daughter learn to walk.
Langley has taken leave from her job to take care of Lucy during the strike, but has no education plan in place currently.
“I want to see support staff at schools get paid a living wage. They work difficult jobs and they deserve to be paid and valued for the work that they do,” Langley said.
“The government needs to come back to the table and offer them a wage they deserve and get them back in school and bring our children back in the classroom.”
Here I have to clarify my perspective on the bourgeois media. (Note the CBC is a public broadcaster, but the government that owns it is a bourgeois government which represents the interests of the capitalist class.) Am I scathing in my criticism of how media owned and controlled by billionaires cover events? How could I not be? The lies, distortions, and propaganda of the capitalist media are legion. Editorial perspectives aside, the very existence of organizations like PressProgress and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is a testament to the fact that corporate media lie on a constant basis and require constant debunking.
Does that mean bourgeois media is completely worthless? Not at all. The fact is that there are a lot of good, honest reporters working in major media who do excellent journalism. On the other hand, more and more of them are being pushed out in favour of craven careerists who worship the rich and powerful—who don’t do journalism, but instead write what those in power want to hear. Occasionally, good reporting does surface, as in Lau’s report. But that’s far outweighed by overall coverage that inevitably echoes the views of the rich. That’s why most strike coverage emphasizes how strikes inconvenience people, rather than why the workers are fighting. (On a related note, I also think that’s why reports on strikes in the capitalist media often seem to go out of their way to avoid naming the union local involved. It makes it harder for readers to support the strikers.)
All this explains the need to build the workers’ press. Hostile coverage like the CBC’s rarely provides the necessary context to understand why workers in these cases need to strike. Instead it follows the government and bosses—who always argue that workers’ demands for better wages and conditions are unreasonable and unaffordable—and emphasizes how the strike is costly, disruptive, inconvenient, etc. It never points out the vast sums spent by governments on programs that benefit the rich like corporate welfare, bank bailouts, pipelines, and increased military and police spending. If one were to take such coverage at face value, the lesson would be that workers should never fight. Instead they should just shut up and keep working, as their standard of living gets worse and they sink deeper into poverty.
Once again, Fightback takes the exact opposite approach. Its report on the Halifax school support workers notes, “The response to the strike has been strong, with parents voicing their support for educational support workers, and students at schools across the HRCE staging solidarity walkouts… Support workers are a vital part of the education system, which cannot fully function without them.” Unlike the CBC, it offers much more context that explains why workers need to fight:
Over the past year, we have seen that the pressure of inflation is forcing workers to fight for better wages and conditions. Union leaders cannot limit their demands to what seems reasonable at the bargaining table. With that approach the workers will never be able to do more than keep their heads above water, as we saw with the below-inflation agreement that ended the recent PSAC federal workers strike. Instead, demands need to be guided by what workers need to have a decent life: cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) and wage increases tied to inflation.
The broader labour movement must come out in support of the strike—in particular, other unionized workers in the HRCE. A victory for CUPE 5047 would not just be a victory for school support staff in the HRCE. It would set a precedent for school support staff across the province. A victory for CUPE 5047 with a contract that gives fair wages is a victory for all.
Now that’s what I call strike coverage.
With inflation and the soaring cost of living, we’re going to keep seeing more and more strikes and lockouts in Canada. If you want to see better coverage of these labour struggles, help support the workers’ press and buy a solidarity subscription to Fightback and La Riposte socialiste. Building truly working class media is the path to better journalism on all fronts.