08) QUEBEC COMMON FRONT STANDS FIRM

 

PV Montreal Bureau

 

            Quebec’s labour movement is standing firm, as the giant 400,000-strong public sector union strike by the Front Commun (Common Front) continues. The Front Commun, an alliance of trade unions in the Quebec public sector, plans to step up actions and  hold a three-day general strike in early December.

 

            Over the past weeks, rotating strikes have taken place across the province. Despite some cool seasonal weather, the mood on the picket lines has been resolute, upbeat and noisy. Thousands have walked out in every region, including 98,000 in Montreal and 41,800 in Quebec City. The strike is reaching as far north as Kuujjuaq, on Ungava Bay, where community health workers are involved; east to the social service workers on the Iles-de-la-Madeleine archipelago in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and west to the teachers of the Cree School Board on James Bay.

 

            However, negotiations with the Couillard Liberal government are being overshadowed by the looming threat of back-to-work legislation. With the strong mobilization of their members, and favourable public support, such a decree would be likely very unpopular but could halt the action.

 

            Anti-labour legislation in Quebec imposes harsh penalties on illegal strikers particularly in the over-broadly defined “essential services” of health care. Legislation brought in by the Bourassa Liberals after a 1986 strike imposed heavy fines. After the Quebec nurses staged the longest nurses strike in Canadian history in 1999, Bouchard’s Parti Québécois government further severely curtailed the right to strike in health care. Now, for every day on strike, workers lose two days’ pay and one year’s seniority, and the union loses twelve weeks of dues.

 

            For now, the Liberals seem content to use the back-to-work legislation as a tactical threat. The government’s proposal was a two year wage freeze, followed by one percent annually for the remaining three years. Since then, reacting to the first wave of rotating strikes, the government has made a new offer: a one year freeze, then, after three years, another one year freeze, keeping the rate at just 3 percent over five years.

 

            The Treasury Board’s proposal has been rejected by the unions, who note that it would reduce salaries for some 18,000 workers (mainly women), cap salaries for thousands of others, and start young workers at a lower pay level. Other sticking points include pensions.

 

(The above article is from the November 16-30, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)