Will Strikers’ Determination Defeat the CAQ and the union bureaucracy?
600,000 strikers, 13% of Quebec work force, against the bosses' state
By Marc Bonhomme - From December 11 to 14, all public sector workers, with a few exceptions, will be on strike: the 420,000 of the Common Front, the 80,000 of the Fédération Interprofessionnelle de la Santé Quebec (FIQ), (most nurses), and 65,000 members of the Fédération Autonome de l'Enseignement (FAE), some 40% of primary and secondary school teachers. The workers march partly-separately but strike together. As 78% of the strikers are women, fighting both for better working conditions and for the socialization of "caring", this strike is also a feminist struggle, more precisely an Eco-feminist one. Public services run mainly on human energy, with little reliance on fossil fuels. Above all, they are creators of rich human links that are obstacles to consumerism and miserable solitude.
The determination of the strikers, not to say their anger - who wouldn't be angry when members of the National Assembly voted themselves a 30% pay rise and the police were offered 21%... which they refused - was expressed by a 95% strike vote that could proceed to an unlimited general strike (UGS). Popular support is evident, both in the polls and on the picket lines, even if it is not organized, any more than the trade union left is organized within the trade union movement. While the Common Front and the FIQ have called a second and third warning strike ending December 14, putting off the UGS until after the holidays if need be, the FAE is already in UGS... with no strike fund. This pseudo-radical stance makes it the weak link, but it could become the spearhead if the current Common Front strike turns into a UGS on December 15. The result is financial difficulties for many, alleviated by donations via social networks and odd jobs. This second phase of the strike movement began to force the hand of the hitherto intransigent Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government. The CAQ has nothing to say about what it called the pandemic's "guardian angels". But it doesn’t (yet) threaten them with a special law to break the strike, as that would cause the pot to boil over.
Except for its autonomist nationalism and identity politics, the CAQ is a copy of the Ontario Doug Ford government, especially its policy of privatizing public services. The result is a policy of austerity that is creating a permanent crisis in health, education and social services, making working conditions unbearable and their quality problematic. Fortunately, the strike comes at a time when the popularity of the CAQ, unstoppable since 2018, is plummeting, starting with that of Premier Francois Legault. His paternalistic call for an end to the FAE strike for the "good of the children" ignores the high proportion of special needs children and students concentrated in the public-regular segment of Quebec's three-tier system. His call for "flexibility" makes a mockery of nurses' "compulsory overtime" (CO). In the words of Legault, who is not afraid to negotiate in the public arena: "It's not normal for our network to be managed by unions rather than by managers. [...] It's going to be a bumpy ride”. In return, the CAQ is offering a wage increase that does not, however, match the rate of inflation. Tax cuts, gift vouchers and gargantuan subsidies for the battery industry have been expensive. Nevertheless, Quebec's net debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen by over 20% in the last six years.
This bad compromise is accentuated by Bills 23 and 15, the latter passed under a gag order, centralizing the management of education and health while facilitating their privatization. Ignoring its new unpopularity, the CAQ is trying to override the determination of the strikers. And for their part, the union leaders are no longer talking about catching up to the average total compensation of other salaried employees in Quebec, which is 7.4% higher (and 22.7% higher for employees in other public sectors, which the CAQ considers abusive).
However, union leaders would concede by agreeing to a long, five-year contract, instead of the usual three years, if an anti-inflation clause is added to the last two years.
And then there are the improvements in working conditions, often expressed in better ratios, which automatically improve public services. On this matter the CAQ is completely rejectionist, not even willing to negotiate. Very precise for the FIQ and FAE, who explain the importance of staffing and insist on it. The Common Front leaders are more vague on this, trying to make it a hidden issue reserved for sectoral tables. For the public, working conditions rather than wages are a priority. The strike is set to become the longest in the public sector in half a century. The desire of both parties to end the strike before the holidays, without UGS, does not augur well for a 180-degree turnaround to prevent the collapse of public services and the risk of privatization. On the part of both the CAQ and the union bureaucracy, which has little grassroots control except through intermediary structures that meet occasionally, it is Machiavellian to use the holiday deadline, which everyone would like to be cloudless. As if genocidal wars and the sixth collapse of the earth system would permit it.
One must say No to a half-baked outcome that prolongs the agony of public service cuts. Instead, an urgent and unlimited general strike that seeks the active support of the population is key. Ending the secrecy of negotiations would help too. Frequent reporting to the union rank and file would be a step forward. Organizing blockades, with allies, would give the strike a more distinctly political character. It would be a great challenge for the opposition Québec Solidaire to get involved, rather than just following the parade. Wouldn't it be a good opportunity to beat the Parti Quebecois to the punch, just as they beat the CAQ to the punch, to show that independence is a left-wing issue?
Marc Bonhomme, December 10, 2023 www.marcbonhomme.com, bonmarc@videotron.ca
Photo: Members with the common front of unions, known in French as the Front commun, protested in Montreal on Oct. 26. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press.