What can we learn from the history of public sector strikes in Quebec? André Lamoureux, professor of political science at the University of Quebec in Montreal, thinks it is important to remember the conflict that tore Quebec apart in 1983.
If a government does indeed have the power to force the hand of workers, it often turns out to be costly – and dubious – to do so, believes the political scientist. At the beginning of the 1980s, in the midst of an economic crisis, the government of René Lévesque paid a high price. “The CAQ government [Coalition avenir Québec] “It would be better to think twice before coming to mention a special law”, as was done at the time, maintains the expert.
That year, after three weeks of strike, the government imposed, through Law 111, the resumption of services in educational establishments. If they do not respect this order, the strikers risk big, very big. “It is one of the most repressive laws ever used in Quebec,” says Professor Lamoureux. Not only does it demoralize state employees, but it cuts employees’ pay; the State is in fact authorized to cut up to 20% of salaries.
Law 111 also requires a return to work under penalty of very severe sanctions. The government intends to fire teachers who challenge its law, and says it can hire others as it wishes. Fines are planned to give even more teeth to the operation: from $50 to $200 per day for an employee, or the equivalent of $135 to $540 in 2023. A union leader can, for his part, be fined a hefty fine of $2,000 to $10,000 ($5,400 to $27,000 in 2023 dollars). The union, for its part, risks fines of $10,000 to $50,000 (the equivalent of $27,000 to $135,000 in 2023).
At this stage of the conflict, the Centrale de l’enseignement du Québec, the CEQ, agrees to take a step aside. Primary and secondary teachers, while seeing salary cuts imposed on them, find themselves leaving their CEGEP colleagues alone to fight. These are grouped within the National Federation of Teachers of Quebec, affiliated with the Confederation of National Unions (CSN). And they dare to defy this law, considered infamous by many. The League of Rights and Liberties of Quebec and the International Federation of Human Rights are among those who decry this very muscular law from the Lévesque government.
This action paved the way for the strong return of Robert Bourassa’s Liberal Party to power two years later. “It is the adoption of this authoritarian law against the main servants of the State which is widely credited when it comes to explaining the electoral defeat of the Parti Québécois in the 1985 elections,” underlines André Lamoureux. The number of Parti Québécois activists collapsed. Several party deputies then recognized that this law had been a serious error. » Some will publicly tear up their membership cards.
Another special law?
Since 1965, no fewer than 44 special laws have been used by the state against its employees. In 1962, for the first time, Prime Minister Jean Lesage was forced to realize that to best reform society, he must count on a public service worthy of the name. Public services are needed more than ever.
But this perspective proves contrary to the conception of an omnipotent State which has prevailed since the dawn of time in the offices of power. So much so that Prime Minister Lesage, pushed against his will to negotiate the working conditions of state employees, balked and declared that “the queen does not negotiate with her subjects”. The sentence passes into history; the use of special laws too.
If workers have the right to assemble, the right to negotiate still remains, decades after the Quiet Revolution, a subject of contention. Can the right to negotiate be limited if the right of association is recognized? The question raises passions.
“In 1999, after 23 days of strike, the government used a special law against nurses to hit them hard,” recalls André Lamoureux. It was in the context of the quest for “zero deficit” led by Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard.
So, “will the CAQ government take the odious step of imposing a special law” in 2023? asks political scientist Martineau. “The effect for the CAQ would undoubtedly be disastrous. Already, the decline in popular support for the CAQ, as we see in the polls, can be explained in large part by this conflict. »
The Common Front of 1972
The essayist Olivier Ducharme devoted a book to the general strike of 1972. “We are not in the same world as in 1972,” he said straight away in an interview. The ideological background in place was anti-capitalist. The confrontation could be violent. […] We were considering a change in our lifestyle. This is the society we wanted to change. […] Inequalities were singled out. The CEQ even published a document which affirmed that the school is at the service of the dominant class. »
In 1972, the Common Front demanded a salary of $100 per week. We came from far away. “There was a huge salary catch-up to be made,” recalls Michel Rioux, at the time the equivalent of a press attaché for union leader Marcel Pepin, of the CSN. “In the health sector in particular, it was crazy. More than half of workers did not earn $100 a week. And these people had no pension fund. Nothing ! » The general strike made it possible at the time to correct glaring injustices, believes Michel Rioux.
The union leaders of the CSN, the CEQ and the Quebec Federation of Workers are put in prison by the government of Robert Bourassa. “The particularity of the 1972 strike is that the union leaders stood together until the end,” maintains Michel Rioux. The quality of public services, he believes, depends largely on how staff in the sector are historically treated.