Change of union guard | Press

Big change of guard at the head of several unions in Quebec. Some presidents wanted to move on, or made sure to leave between negotiations, while for others, the exit was painful. State of the union scene with some of the leading figures who have just turned the page.

Louise Leduc
Press

Jacques Létourneau left the presidency of the CSN to run (unsuccessfully) for mayor of Longueuil. The door to door then confirmed to him what he already had a presentiment of. Even though he had been president of this great powerhouse for nine years, he was a great stranger to everyone.

“In the past, Ti-Louis Laberge, Michel Chartrand, Gérald Larose, Fernand Daoust, Monique Simard, everyone knew them! ”

Of course, these were larger-than-life characters, but Mr. Létourneau believes that the low profile of union presidents is linked “to the loss of influence of unions in society”.

“Before, you had the state, unions and employers. Today you have thousands of bloggers and commentators who each go there with their own opinion. Trying to transcend public opinion in all of this? Forget it. ”

Even if the two presidents of the CSN and the FTQ “represent a million workers, the opinion of a president of a large central, today, is considered as one opinion among many others”.

As proof, he illustrates, the media hardly gave the microphone to union presidents during this week’s economic update.

The fragmentation of the trade union world – with endless acronyms – does not help. Yes, says Jacques Létourneau, the days of the three clearly identified powerhouses (FTQ, CSN and CEQ, the teachers’ union) are over.

To survive, the union environment will have to adapt, he notes. To the needs of self-employed workers, people working from home, young employees (in fast food restaurants, in particular) for whom work is a revolving door. “The model where you landed a job in a factory or elsewhere to spend your life there, accumulating your seniority and your retirement funds, all of that is taking the edge. ”

But he is optimistic that the unions will succeed in reinventing themselves, especially since “the basic game of negotiation has not changed. The State still finds its account negotiating collective agreements for 500,000 people at once ”.

In more than a quarter of a century of active unionism, Mr. Létourneau says he has “known nothing but the management of degrowth with the closing of hospitals, the pursuit of the zero deficit and the repayment of the debt. Let’s say that we, the unions, are the last to have been surprised by the slaughter in the CHSLDs… ”

On a personal note, he emphasizes that his nine years as president of the CSN did not prevent him from being a father present.

“When I started 25 years ago, leaving a meeting to go take care of your children, that couldn’t be. Meetings ended late at night and many took place in the brewery! When I accepted to be president, I made it very clear. I had two young children and there was no way I wouldn’t see them grow up. At 5 p.m., I went to look for them. I have often wondered if it would have gone as well if I had been a woman. ”

The weight of legislation

Claire Montour has also just bowed out, in her case of the presidency of the FSQ-CSQ (Fédération de la santé du Québec de la Centrale des unions du Québec), and this, after 37 years of union action in the body. .

What strikes her above all, when the curtain falls, “is how much we have to fight to keep working conditions in collective agreements. There are so many ministerial decrees, regulations… The government really legislates a lot ”.

The former Minister of Health Gaétan Barrette created large structures (the CISSS and the CIUSSS), the union units have also grown and nothing is on a human scale, she underlines. “In the 1980s, there were buildings, small hospitals, with small permanent teams. […] Was there a question about a post, about public holidays? You went to human resources, and if necessary, a grievance was filed. There, nobody decides! “

Nothing can illustrate this better than what has happened to nurses in recent months. The ink was barely dry on the agreement obtained after negotiations with Quebec in August, when the Legault government announced its intention, in September, to pay nurses up to $ 18,000 to retain them. or attract them to the public network.

A month later, Nancy Bédard, who headed the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), faced a vote of no-confidence from her nursing members, which she won with only 60% support. Quickly, she resigned (and declined to grant an interview for this report).

The image of the union member

Having left the presidency of the Federation of Health and Social Services of the CSN after nine years, Jeff Begley, who had been in union action since 1994, is optimistic that the image of unions and their members is changing. With labor shortages and the pandemic, “people are starting to tell themselves to be careful with the staff.”

He recalls that these are union members who went to the front to treat people, without ammunition or enough personal protective equipment, risking their lives. (At least 10 patient attendants have reportedly died since the start of the pandemic.)

For months in the CHSLDs, death was everywhere and so many bodies, he recalls, that temporary morgues had to be put in place. “I think a lot of people are going to be bad for a long time. ”

Mr Begley points out that the unions very quickly alerted the government to the lack of masks and other personal protective equipment. “But there was no eavesdropping,” he says.

The lot of relations between unions and government? Mr. Begley, on the contrary, believes that great things can emerge when things are done differently.

As proof of this, he points to the creation of early childhood centers, which were born “in a real mobilization of all stakeholders”.

Ditto for paramedics, before the 2000s, he says. “Before their unionization, the system was pretty much a haystack. The paramedics needed better training and, again, there was real collaboration. ”

One of the challenges facing his successors, says Begley, is successfully reaching their members. Because at the CSN as elsewhere, where there were local unions of 150 members, “we end up with structures with 5,000 members”, consequences, he notes, of the creation of the CISSS and CIUSSS mentioned above.

Former president Sonia Éthier, who until recently represented teachers at the Centrale des unions du Québec (CSQ), and Andrée Poirier, who has just stepped down as president of the Alliance du personnel professionnelle et technique de la health and social services (APTS), did not wish to grant an interview to Press.