François Legault’s growing inability to read the Quebec he governs has never seemed more blatant than in the standoff between his government and the forces of education. His emotional outing to “stop the strike” in the name of “the good of our children” will only have confirmed his disconnection. Even with the worst faith in the world, what is happening before his eyes cannot be reduced to an attack against “our children”. If so many Quebecers are standing — workers, but also parents, grandparents and citizens behind them — it is first and foremost because they firmly believe that the well-being of our children also depends on the repair of a public model in disarray.
The Prime Minister’s cry from the heart could not have come at a worse time. As days of forced leave pile up for more than 368,000 students (and their families, who, let’s be honest, have had it much worse during the pandemic), reports highlight the weight that resorting to an indefinite strike puts on the shoulders of union members, mostly women, who went out into the cold of autumn without strike funds.For the most vulnerable, mainly single mothers, some couples of teachers without income and a substantial number of school support staff, this translates into enormous financial pressures.
Debt consolidation negotiated urgently, postponement at great expense of payment of various goods, sale at a discount of car, colleague Jessica Nadeau has documented this accelerated precariousness at the end of which sometimes hangs the specter of personal bankruptcy. This is especially true for certain young recruits, whose income, more modest at the bottom of the scale, did not allow them to create a cushion to face such a load at full speed.
Who would go through such stress on themselves if not for a cause beyond their control? The question is fundamental. Yet she doesn’t even seem to be part of the equation. Do we really understand in Quebec what is implied by the fact that one in eight school support employees (12%) used food banks in the last year? Do we understand that as the strike drags on, others will join their ranks? Is this modern Quebec?
Financial pressure can become so great that The duty has listed dozens of advertisements from strikers secretly offering their tutoring and babysitting services. Colleagues Améli Pineda and Stéphanie Vallet contacted several of them to find out their practices. Most offered them rates ranging from $25 to $40 per hour, mostly without invoice.
The maneuver raises serious moral and ethical questions. These practices directly undermine union solidarity. But we have so well integrated the idea of a school market in Quebec that we have difficulty throwing the first stone at teachers and parents who are only reproducing what our three-tier school has already made it possible to achieve. put in place all year round without anyone finding it enough to offend them to decree that it is enough.
Through the gang, the phenomenon accentuates the immense disparities which affect students, a problem which, lo and behold, is at the very heart of the present negotiation. The union leaderships themselves were careful not to pull out the stick. So many teachers have already jumped ship, we shouldn’t push others to do the same. And then, it is always delicate to talk about union solidarity without sliding towards union responsibility.
For the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), which has opted for the nuclear weapon of an unlimited strike, the slope is particularly tricky. Has the Federation done everything it could in advance to prepare its members for the resounding consequences of this historic standoff? Has it provided all the useful and necessary mechanisms to help them get through the conflict to the best of the contributions collected?The proof is far from having been made. All these things left unsaid could come to haunt her, and for a long time to come.
It is worth remembering that the parties entered into this negotiation knowing that they would make history. Two judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada have framed and restricted the valid recourse to a special law in labor disputes. Even if this sword of Damocles has receded, the unions know that attrition overcomes the greatest impulses, the FAE more than the others, since its members are becoming poorer in real time.
However, the good of our children that all parties say they are seeking will not come about other than through a “good negotiated agreement”. Neither blackmail nor confrontation will be able to serve this ideal. We must return to this pearl from the essayist and moralist Joseph Joubert: “The aim of the debate […] should not be victory, but progress. » However, to be significant, this progress must serve to heal the collective. Not to dismantle it, trample it or claim the best part of it.