This text is part of the special 75th anniversary of the FEESP
In June 1947, about twenty unions of municipal workers united to form the Federation of Municipal Unions. It was the beginning of the turbulent history of the Federation of Public Service Employees (FEESP-CSN), which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.
Ginette Guérin, who led the FEESP from 1988 to 2009, salutes the courage of the first president, René Constant, and his fellow activists who founded this union under the reign of Maurice Duplessis. They were confronted with the very anti-unionist government of the Union Nationale, which notably adopted a law prohibiting the use of strikes in the public and parapublic sectors.
“It was not until 1964—four years after Jean Lesage came to power—that these workers regained this right,” recalls Ginette Guérin. They didn’t take long to exercise it. In December 1964, employees of the Régie des alcools du Québec launched a strike that lasted two and a half months, followed the following year by those of Hydro-Québec engineers and tradespeople.
hard fights
Unionization increased sharply in Quebec during the 1960s and the membership of the FEESP almost doubled. Support employees from school boards and CEGEPs, as well as employees of the Régie des alcools were among the new members, as were those from the Valleyfield school board, where Ginette Guérin worked. “The federation then wanted to upgrade the reputation of civil servants and obtain wage parity with the private sector,” she says.
While the rate of unionization improves, relations with the Lesage government deteriorate. In 1972, the CSN, the FTQ and the CEQ — formerly CSQ — formed the first inter-union Common Front in the context of the difficult negotiations for the renewal of the collective agreements for employees in the public and parapublic sectors.
The confrontation with the State will notably see the walkout, for 10 days, of more than 210,000 workers, including nearly 12,000 from the FEESP, and the imprisonment of the leaders of the three major trade union federations. That year, Ginette Guérin attended her very first CSN convention. “It was brewing royally and the debates were of a very high level, it was impressive! she confides.
Ten years later, relations with the government – led this time by the Parti Québécois – once again turned sour. Struggling with a severe economic recession, Quebec decided in December 1982 to unilaterally cut the wages and working conditions of its employees. The unions called a general strike in January 1983. The government then adopted a special law – nicknamed “law truncheon” – to force a return to work in colleges and public schools.
“The union members were very disappointed with René Lévesque’s government,” recalls Ginette Guérin. Many of our members considered that he had been elected thanks to the support of the workers and that he was letting them down. »
Pay equity and retirement
Ginette Guérin became president of the FEESP in 1988 and was at the forefront of the fight for pay equity between men and women. “It was a small municipal union made up of a dozen office workers from Marieville that obtained it for the first time in 1993, after a 15-month strike,” she says. This win paved the way for other municipal unions. In 1996, the government passed the Quebec Pay Equity Act.
The president of the FEESP from 2009 to 2018, Denis Marcoux, remembers for his part the hard fight on the pension plans of municipal employees. At the time, the mayors of Montreal and Quebec were complaining about deficits in these plans. In 2014, the government passed Bill 3, which became Bill 15. Some municipal employees lost up to 40% of their retirement pension, others had to replenish up to 50% of their plan’s deficits, which which went against collective agreements.
“This file is not settled eight years later, it remains before the courts and the case could end up in the Supreme Court”, underlines Denis Marcoux. The unions claim that several articles of Bill 15 are unconstitutional, since they violate the fundamental rights of association, free negotiation and strike.
The FEESP now has more than 425 affiliated unions representing 65,000 members of public and parapublic services. “It’s both a challenge and a strength,” notes Denis Marcoux. It requires a lot of coordination to properly support our members who evolve in very different fields. But it is also the great wealth of the Federation, which allows it to get through the most difficult times and to make gains. »