A “psychodrama”, never again! | The Press

Never again ! After each negotiation, we hear the same refrain. But if we want to change the record once and for all, we must learn lessons from the civil service strike which turned into a “psychodrama”, as the president of the CSN said at the beginning of the week. Even if it is still early to take stock, here are already five ideas for reflection.

Repair democracy union

Union democracy is not working well.

In some union units, the votes that led to the indefinite general strike that paralyzed Quebec were obtained with starving participation rates of barely 6%, even though the common front claims that the average rate hovered around 30 %.

Is it legal? Yes. Is this representative of the will of all members? No.

We must therefore seriously question the work that union representatives have accomplished on the ground to encourage their members to vote. But at the same time, it must be recognized that when the government forces the merger of union units, this results in the creation of very large groups, sometimes covering hundreds of kilometers, which can distance leaders from their base.

No matter: more effort is needed. Why not start by requiring unions to provide an online voting option instead of forcing members to travel? Experience shows that this improves participation.

Close the microphones to reduce the cacophony

Tax cuts for taxpayers, billions for the Northvolt battery factory, a 30% increase in the remuneration of MPs, seven million for two Kings hockey games in Quebec… We cannot say that the Future Coalition Quebec has set the table for calm negotiations.

But the interventions of elected officials in public also caused interference in the negotiations. While it is utopian to imagine that we could completely remove politics from negotiations, we must remember that it is by closing the microphone and letting the negotiators do their work that we reached agreements.

Cultivate confidence in upstream

The president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, also threw sand into the mix by launching discussion forums in the middle of the negotiations. Such forums would be very useful… but before the negotiations.

In fact, why not maintain an open dialogue, continuously and at the local level, in order to smooth the ground for the next negotiations? As in a couple, you shouldn’t just talk to each other when things are going badly!

This would be all the more useful since certain subjects (for example, how to better deal with students in difficulty in classes) require complex reflection which does not necessarily fit with negotiations for the renewal of an employment contract.

In countries like Sweden, we rely much more on dialogue than in our North American model which is based on adversity. This allows for constructive discussions instead of cultivating a toxic work climate.

And in the private world, preventive mediation allows us to discuss subjects that we hope to revisit, to arrive at the next round of negotiations with objectives that are not at odds.

Voluntary arbitration

For its part, Ontario has succeeded in moving away from the logic of confrontation by favoring an alternative method of conflict resolution. Education unions agreed to a mechanism whereby issues remaining in dispute, after a specified period of negotiation, would be decided by an arbitrator. All this made it possible to avoid the strike.

This is done in the private sector in Quebec. But to the public, it’s blocking.

Some people fear putting their destiny in the hands of a third party. They fear that by avoiding negotiations, we will allow the problems to grow over the years.

But precisely, the threat that an arbitrator will decide for them pushes the two parties to find solutions themselves, by imposing a deadline which makes the negotiations more productive.

And when the arbitrator must decide, he does not do so in a disembodied manner, but rather by drawing inspiration from the evolution of the negotiations and making comparisons with what has been done in the past and elsewhere.

Essential education services

It is clear that union members have the right to strike. It is a fundamental right recognized by the Canadian Charter.

But the labor dispute that caused some children to miss a month of school forces us to question the extent to which education should be considered an essential service.

This should certainly be the case for young people with severe disabilities who attend specialized rehabilitation classes. The consequences of a service interruption are particularly serious for them. This can lead to real regression, or even aggressive behavior.

For them, it is not just a question of education, but a question of care. And what about the thousands of disadvantaged children who have lost access to free meals delivered to school?

In France, schools offer minimal service during strikes. Why not with us?