Tories, teachers and the media politics of education reform: news discourse and the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike

Abstract

Governments are normally granted a privileged definitional role in news reporting of political issues and events. Although a number of empirical studies in a variety of policy areas support this premise, the ability of government sources to dominate and determine the tenor and tone of news coverage is particularly salient in the case of issues and events with contentious and uncertain causes and solutions. This paper offers an empirical analysis of mainstream press coverage of the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike, the largest collective action ever undertaken by teachers in North American history. Situated within the conceptual and empirical debates around the “primary definition” thesis, the study revisits the literature on strike news and draws some comparative and contrasting remarks on the role of media discourse in covering private and public sector strikes. While the study's empirical findings offer some support for the primary definer thesis, there appeared to be a disconnect between the media's critical framing and narrativization of the strike and public support for the government's position.

Keywords:

• Strike News
• Primary Definition
• Framing
• Unions
• Harris Government
• Political Communication

Notes

The language around replacing certified teachers with non‐unionized instructors was eventually softened in the final draft of the legislation to provide for people to “assist teachers or to complement instruction.” On the question of preparation time, the government amended its proposal to cut high school teacher time from 50 percent to approximately 30 percent. Elementary school preparation time was left unchanged. The removal of principals and vice‐principals from the bargaining unit, however, was not included in the original negotiations and was thus seen by the unions as a measure designed to punish school administrators for supporting their staff on picket lines.

Or as critical researchers like the Glasgow Media Group (e.g. 1976) and NewsWatch Canada (Hackett et al., 2000) have found, events that reflect poorly on the decisions and actions of management, such as industrial accidents or mass layoffs of employees, are systematically underreported.

The New Right is a term that has been subject to considerable analytical imprecision. For some, New Right politics is synonymous with neo‐liberalism or new managerialism, while for others the term denotes a neo‐conservative approach to governance that is based on a strong state. What is crucial about the New Right is the conflict (both philosophically and procedurally) between an economistic discourse that emphasizes lower taxes, a reduced role for the state, the expansion of consumer choice, etc., and a neo‐conservative embrace of traditional social norms and values that plays itself out ideologically. Elements of both were in play during the strike, as the government relied on a neo‐liberal argument to reform the system (improve efficiency, etc.) and a law‐and‐order discourse to bring the striking teachers into line.

The reference to an education system that was deserving of a “failing grade” is taken from the Tories' 1995 election platform, The Common Sense Revolution. Cited in Knight (1998, p. 109).

See Toronto Star, “Contract Reveals Plan for Education”, 28 October 1997, p. A7.

Figures obtained by the author through access to information legislation reveal that between September 1997 and January 1998, the government spent in excess of $3.8 million on television, radio and print advertisements to convince the public not only that its restructuring agenda would improve the quality of education, but also that the unions' job action was both illegal and immoral. As government documents reveal, this media strategy was designed to incite the union leadership to call on their members to walk out (Ministry of Education and Training, 1997; cited in Kozolanka, 2002, p. 139).

See Toronto Star, “Teachers Could Take a Lesson on PR from Government”, 23 October 1997, p. A6.

The Globe is a more serious, highbrow paper that caters largely to the country's intellectual and business elite. At the time of the strike, it was the most obvious right‐of‐centre daily in national circulation. Since this period, with the launch of the National Post in 1998 by Conrad Black (currently owned by CanWest Global), the Globe has re‐positioned itself as a fiscally conservative, but socially liberal paper. The Star is the widest circulating mass market daily in all of Canada, and it tends to speak with a social‐liberal editorial voice, although as Knight (2001) has shown, this is less obvious in the case of labour news. The Sun is a right‐wing tabloid characterized by a firm pro‐business, anti‐socialist, populist perspective that is unwaveringly critical of organized labour for both economic and normative reasons. Daily circulation estimates at the time of the strike were: Globe = 320,000; Star = 500,000; and Sun = 250,000.

Given the editorial diversity of these newspapers, the findings reported in this study are intended to be representative of the general tenor and tone of news coverage of the strike in other newspapers and forms of media. Although by no means do these findings exhaust the potential for differing types of discourses that may have emerged in smaller‐circulating newspapers or on television, radio or alternative media sites.

The sample size is approximately 50 percent of the total population of news articles. To ensure reliability, a second coder independently coded a random sample of approximately 30 percent of the total coverage. Inter‐coder testing was sufficiently reliable at 89 percent for source access figures and 82 percent for themes.

The most frequently cited government spokespeople were Education Minister, Dave Johnson, and Premier, Mike Harris. To a lesser extent, Finance Minister, Ernie Eves, also received coverage. Quasi‐government bodies, such as the “Education Improvement Commission” and the “Ontario College of Teachers,” were infrequently quoted. These agencies mostly spoke to the need for reforming and improving education governance, although when prompted their opposition to the strike was unequivocal.

Union sources were coded as “labour (+)” and “labour (−).” The first category refers to any quote from a union representative or rank‐and‐file member that is supportive of the strike. The latter category refers to any quote that voices displeasure with the unions' method of protest or supports the government's agenda.

This was particularly the case with the Sun. See “Rebel Hires Help to Cross Lines”, 26 October 1997, p. 5; “These Teachers Are Working Tomorrow,” 26 October 1997, p. 5.

The most prominent union voice at the beginning of the strike was Eileen Lennon, president of the Ontario Teachers Federation. Other union representatives were Maret Sadem‐Thompson (Federation of Women Teachers' Association of Ontario), Phyllis Benedict (Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation), Diane Chénier (Franco‐Ontarian Teachers' Association), Marshall Jarvis (Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association) and Earl Manners (Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation).

It is important to note that the legislative context for Bill 160 was the introduction of the Fewer School Boards Act (Bill 104) in January 1997. Bill 104 reduced the number of school boards from 129 to 66, cut the number of school trustees from 1900 to 700 overall, and transferred a range of governing powers from democratically elected school board trustees to the Education Improvement Commission, a quasi‐governmental agency established by the Tories to preside over education reform.

See Toronto Sun, “McGuinty Does a Flip‐flop”, 28 October 1997, p. 18.

As Kozolanka (2002) has shown, Parent groups occupied a range of spaces within the ideological and policy spectrum. The Ontario Parent Council was established in the early 1990s and includes numerous government appointees and served the role of “institutionalized parent voice.” Its mandate was to “advise the minister on educational issues and suggest ways to involve parents in their children's education.” In contrast, Parents for Education was formed in late 1996 with the explicit mandate of opposing cuts to education funding, but doing so from within the established parameters of policy discussion and debate. The Ontario Education Alliance, on the other hand, is a prime example of an “oppositional” policy group which has relied largely on disruptive tactics. Although these groups received varying degrees of media attention during the strike (Parents for Education received the most), by far news coverage tended to rely on the views of individual parents over those organized in a collective. Outside of the strike coverage, however, these groups have been more successful in garnering media attention, and indeed one of the upshots of the strike was that these groups, particularly the latter two, became more readily acknowledged by reporters as “sources of record” on education policy in the post‐strike years.

Although in its editorials, the Sun cast doubt on the motives of both the government and unions, it was unequivocal in its criticism of the strike as a reasonable or appropriate method of protest. In doing so, the Sun very clearly and unapologetically attributed all harms and inconveniences to parents and the community more broadly to the strike action.

See, for example, Toronto Star, “Anti‐Harris Sentiment Strong in Toronto Schoolyards”, 28 October 1997, p. A6.

People for Education featured as a source of record in eight articles published in the Star over the two‐week period of the strike. This compares to zero and two articles quoting the pro‐reform Ontario Parents Council and Coalition for Education Reform, respectively. By contrast, the Sun ran only one article quoting People for Education and zero for the other groups.

The “union division” theme referred mostly to instances when the strike was represented in terms of the conflicts between labour leaders and the rank‐and‐file (e.g. “Holdout Teachers ‘Betrayed’ as Allies Return to Job”, Toronto Sun, 8 November 1997, p. 5), between striking teachers and their colleagues who refused to protest (e.g. “These Teachers Are Working Tomorrow”, Toronto Sun, 26 October 1997, p. 5) and division between the five member unions of the teachers' federation (e.g. “Back to School? Not so fast, some teachers warn”, Toronto Star, 8 November 1997, p. A1). The “law and order” theme referred to cases where the strike was described as an act in violation of the law (e.g. “School's Out: teachers force illegal strike”, Toronto Sun, 27 October 1997, p. 1), and the “social harm” theme referred to the effects a strike would have for parents and students (e.g. “Let's Give Parents a Big Break”, Globe and Mail, 30 October 1997, p. A22).

For example, see Toronto Star, “Many Firms Facing Cash Crunch from Teachers' Strike” and “End Strike Soon, Business Argues” (both 28 October 1997, p. D11).

Globe and Mail, “Teachers, Tories Far Apart on Bill 160”, 27 October 1997, p. A7. Also see Toronto Star, “Yes, Class Size Does Matter”, 29 October 1997, p. A16.

Toronto Sun, “Rebel Hires Help to Cross Lines”, 26 October 1997, p. 5.

Globe and Mail, “Teachers to Walk Out”, 27 October 1997, p. A1.

This frame was particularly prominent in the Sun. On the day before the strike began, this paper ran two lead articles outlining the conflict within the unions over strategies and tactics: “Rebel Hires Help to Cross Lines” and “These Teachers Are Working Tomorrow”, 26 October 1997, p. 5.

Globe and Mail, “Teachers Strike Leads to Layoffs: many firms providing services to schools forced to cut workers”, 30 October 1997, p. B2.

The electoral defeat of the government at the hands of the Liberals in the 2003 election was attributed to voter fatigue with the Tories' hard‐line, law‐and‐order platform.