Fifty years ago, on May 10, 1972, unionized employees in Sept-Îles, both in the public and private sectors, took time off work and took over public places, including the street, the courthouse square, the local radio station, and that, according to the model of the workers’ occupation of a factory. Suddenly, the city was under the control of the unions with the complicity of a sizeable portion of the population.
Early in the morning, the only land access road to this environment, Route 138, was cut off to the west and blocked by heavy goods vehicles to the east. These walkouts were provoked by the imprisonment of the presidents of the three central unions (FTQ, CSN and CEQ), whose affiliated unions in the public sector were negotiating as a common front the renewal of their collective agreements. This form of control and paralysis of part of the current activities of this environment was quickly designated as the union occupation of a city.
Reports of this event were provided at different times and in various media: news media, history and social science works, video documentaries, committed or militant writings. Some of this information shortens this period of union control over the city, often summing it up to two days, May 10 and 11.
However, it was not until May 17 that construction workers and public sector employees returned to work, and this, despite the deployment of a large contingent of the Sûreté du Québec, which had passed through the airport on the night of May 10 to 11 in an effort to control the population. We are a few signatories to have been, among others, witnesses involved in various ways in this occupation, and we want to re-establish certain facts.
Thus, several commentators tend to make the erosion of trade union action coincide with the tragedy of the car which drove into the crowd of demonstrators on the grounds of the courthouse at the end of the day on May 10. This resulted in one death and 35 additional injuries, not to mention the deep trauma caused to the latter and also to the witnesses who narrowly avoided the physical impact. Admittedly, this shock destabilized the mobilization, but it did not stifle it.
turn the page too fast
Of course, local elites and others reluctant to social protest were quick to attribute such a gesture to union action: this is what union action leads to, violence. However, there is a first rectification to establish: the gesture of the one designated as the “driver” was a deliberate act on the part of this person who was angry with the unions.
Witnesses heard him in at least one bar, words that could announce his action. It was not the gesture of a drunk driver doing a dangerous maneuver on a road. Granted, he may have acted while impaired, but he was determined to tackle the protesters. It is therefore an attack, a qualifier that we did not dare to use in the comments and analyses.
There is a second rectification to establish. Too commonly, the event of the occupation of the city is attributed to a spontaneous action triggered by a few more daring militants who blocked the road. However, such popular mobilization cannot arise spontaneously and be maintained over such an important period. Admittedly, there was the trigger for the imprisonment of the union leaders. But we should also know that over the past two years, representatives of local unions affiliated with the three centrals had given themselves an important intervention program by grouping together in the United Workers Front (FTU).
They had managed to reserve, in a sector of public land, lots so that ordinary employees could build family houses, while entrepreneurs monopolized land and housing, which created shortages and higher bids. This action was anchored both in the project of national emancipation or the independence of Quebec and in the deep working-class and popular aspiration to control its environment and its living conditions.
Finally, a third correction must be made regarding the contributions of a social movement that has unfolded on such a scale. Some describe it as anti-social, while others present it more as a defeat since it would have brought nothing both for the workers on strike and for the population in general. However, this is turning the page too quickly.
On the one hand, the 1972 negotiations effectively led, already in the short term, to the requested minimum wage of $100 per week, as well as the reduction of wage differentials, job security, pension funds, in addition to having an impact on minimum wage and income security. On the other hand, in Sept-Îles itself, in addition to union actions, we saw the emergence and growth, over the 10 years that followed May 1972, of groups that were very active on issues concerning women, young people and social rights.
* Also signed this text: Diane Huet, Manikoutai school (1970-2004), Michelle Desfonds, vice-president of the FTU (1970-1972) and union advisor at the SERF-CEQ (1977-1982), Pierre Rouxel, teacher at CEGEP of Sept-Iles (1971-2005)