If Unions Seek the Guilty for the State of Quebec’s Public Healthcare, They Need Only Look Into a Mirror
The historic Quebec strike of 2015 achieved only modest wage gains that favored the impoverishment of healthcare workers, a concession on pensions, insignificant improvement in working conditions and did nothing to prevent the deterioration of public services.
Nearly half a million Quebec workers staged a provincial-wide general strike on December 9, including 400,000 who were members of a Common Front which represented all major trade union federations in Quebec including healthcare workers, teachers and government workers, plus 34,000 teachers in a separate union, the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE).
The general strike became the climax of the anti-Austerity movement, which had begun in the spring when 30,000 students went on a two-week strike termed Printemps 2015, (Maple Spring).
The austerity budget of Quebec Premier Couillard Liberal government cut public health spending by 30 per cent along with deep cuts to the education budget and public services.
During the summer of 2015 with the Liberal government showing no signs of modifying their austerity roadmap, and continuing to demand major concessions on wages, pensions, and working conditions, contract negotiations with the unions hit a stalemate.
Angry with the stalled negotiations, union workers gave the leadership a six day rotating strike mandate to challenge among other things the Quebec’s public sector wage freeze and cuts to frontline services.
Utilizing the anti-Austerity discourse which had become widespread throughout the province, the Common Front linked the public-sector strike into not just a struggle about wages and working conditions, but a battleground to defend Quebec’s État social.
“With parents’ demonstrations in front of schools, students voting for a one-day strike on November 5, and the support of the majority of the population, etc. Realizing this rare opportunity, unions associated the contract negotiations with the anti-Austerity movement,” Sonia Ionescu, McGill Daily, November 02, 2015.
On October 26, over 400,000 public and parapublic sector employees started a series of regional rotating strike days, which would become the largest labour movement in Quebec’s history.
“On every picket line, public support was palpable. This was confirmed when a public opinion poll showed that the labour unions had two times more support than the government.* All the stars of the struggle seemed to be aligning in the run up to the Common Front’s three-day general strike planned for the beginning of December. Students and community groups prepared for walkouts on the same days. It looked like a social strike would shut down Quebec,” Alain Savard ISR, Summer 2016.
The Common Front leadership backed with a historic labour movement, public support and a Saskatchewan (2015) Supreme Court of Canada decision, recognizing that freedom of association was a collective right that could go as far as the right to strike, deciding not to exploit the full potential of the public-sector strike, and in a last effort to reach a deal, cancelled the strike.
“This had the effect of a cold shower on the union membership, and it profoundly disorganized students and community groups. Under pressure from government intransigence above and rank-and-file pressure below, the union officials finally called a one-day general public sector strike on December 9, but it was now out of sync with other sectors. Nevertheless, the strike was the largest in Quebec’s history, with a total of 435,000 workers out on picket lines,” Alain Savard ISR, Summer 2016.
On Sunday, December 20, 2015, at a press conference in Montreal, satisfied union leaders revealed to the population of Quebec the details of a tentative agreement reached with the Conseil du trésor’s, the Quebec public employers negotiating body.
The president of the Central of National Trade Unions (CSN) Jacques Létourneau, the spokesperson for the intersyndical secretariat for public services (SISP), Lucie Martineau and the president of the Quebec Workers Federation (FTQ), Daniel Boyer, trumpeted the fact that they had persuaded the government, in a 13 hour negotiating blitz, to move from their initial offer of 3 per cent in salary increases over five years to wage increases equivalent to 10.5% over five years.
The Common Front’s original wage demand was for an hourly wage rate increase of 13.5 per cent over three years, at the time the Conseil du trésor was offering 3 per cent over a five-year contract.
Despite the Common Front leadership trumpeting the five-year deal, it included a two-year pay rate freeze with 1.5, 1.75 and 2 per cent increases in years two, three and four respectively. The tentative agreement did little or nothing towards the anti-Austerity movement, a drive the Common Front had embraced whole-hog.
“Were union leaders been afraid? Were they lazy? Are they more conservative than their base? Do they lack ambition? Were they unable to read the favourable conditions which were presented to them? Difficult to answer these questions, but one thing remains, the Liberal government can rub its hands: it had no cards in hand and lo and behold it easily wins, and the population, continually grappling with a damaged social state, collectively loses,” David Sanschagrin, Huffington Post, December 22, 2015.
Quebec’s largest labour movement, the historic strike of 2015, achieved only modest wage gains that favoured the impoverishment of healthcare workers, a concession on pensions, insignificant improvements in working conditions and did nothing to prevent the deterioration of public services.