2024 - Historic day: 560,000 workers on strike

Some 560,000 public sector workers are on strike Thursday, a historic day for Quebec.

Indeed, the Common Front is entering its third and final day of walkout, while the Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec (FIQ) and the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) are calling for the movement today.

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The FIQ will be on strike Thursday and Friday after holding two other days earlier this month.

The FAE, for its part, is in its first day of indefinite general strike which could be spread over time if no agreement is reached between the unions and Quebec.

Around sixty gatherings are planned throughout Quebec.

To maintain pressure on the Legault government, the FAE is calling for a Grande Marche on Thursday starting at noon which will take place at the corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Gary-Carter Street, near Jarry Park, in Montreal.

A teacher testifies about the strike and the impacts at the microphone of Benoit Dutrizac via QUB radio :

“We are aware of the problems that [la grève] will cause, sacrifices that it will require for everyone, but particularly for the teachers who have chosen since this morning to deprive themselves of salary because we want to offer better to the students of Quebec and because public schools deserve better” , declared Mélanie Hubert, president of the FAE.

Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY

She believes that teachers “are not asking for the moon”, but simply for better conditions to “resolve the shortage which has hit us hard for several years”.

“There are a lot of qualified teachers in Quebec, the problem is that they have left the ship,” she added. We ask for a little confidence and above all recognition from our employer.”

The question of “priority” salaries

The Common Front unions, which are beginning their third and final day of strike, gathered in front of the Cégep Maisonneuve in Montreal, while the FIQ will do the same in front of the Santa-Cabrini Hospital.

Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY

For Caroline Senneville, president of the CSN, the question of salaries is a priority.

“[Il] things need to change on salaries. […] I say to anyone in government, come here look the workers in the face and say [leur] ”at the end of your collective agreement you will have less purchasing power than at the start of your collective agreement” […]. With what we have on the table, this is what we [leur] offer, to end this collective agreement poorer,” she declared in front of the Cégep de Maisonneuve.

“I would like to come back to the $7 million to the Los Angeles Kings,” said Mario Beauchemin, third vice-president of the CSQ. It’s true that it’s not a large amount, but at the sectoral tables, it would solve a lot of problems [comme] regulate the exodus of professionals to the private sector [et] address the labor shortage of support staff.”

For his part, Samuel Sicard, director of the Montreal region for the CPAS-FTQ, stressed that Quebecers do not want to “return to the Duplessis years, where people had to choose which child [devait] have the education or who was to be cared for in the family”.

Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY

The hardening of the union conflict does not reveal any glimmer of hope for a happy outcome, while the FIQ joins the protest and the FAE, which represents 40% of teachers in Quebec, sticks to its positions.

If a conciliator has been trying for two days to unravel the Common Front conflict, the FAE seems to be looking for “new avenues” in the face of the impasse in the negotiations which are continuing all the same.