March 1, 2021, 5 a.m., freezing rain falls on the black asphalt on the city streets. I arrive in the parking lot of the brand new Saint-Laurent Sports Complex. Members of the Quebec Aquatic Centers Workers Union – CSN have adopted a strike mandate. This will be their first experience of a union strike. It’s still dark, it’s cold. As I get out of my car, a supervisor is already intimidating a young activist. I intervene quickly. The vast majority of union members are between 16 and 25 years old and have no union or activist experience. […]
I will spend several days by their side, on the sidewalk, in front of the door of the Complex. Several days during which we will have to face the employer directly, to resist the intimidation of the security agents hired especially for the occasion and the regular visits of the police forces. The employer will try, without success, to dislodge us by formal notice. The picket will be maintained, the use of scabs will be reported to the Ministry of Labor […]
The picket lines are privileged places for building solidarity, but also spaces for uncommon union and activist education. And I learned that in the spring of 2012. I experienced my strike on university and CEGEP campuses, on picket lines and on the floor of CLASSE conventions. I participated in dozens of general assemblies, demonstrations, as an organizer, facilitator or simple activist. At the heart of the strike, I wanted, like so many of my comrades, that it would lead to profound and immediate results. But that is rarely how social change happens.
For me, the most fruitful legacy of the 2012 strike is that of democracy. The strike movement drew all its strength from the general assemblies of the student associations. This particular way of meeting, debating and making strategic decisions collectively is what made us so tenacious. […] This legacy has fueled the struggles that have been waged ever since. The majority of 2012 students today are between 27 and 40 years old. They and they have become teachers, journalists, social workers, artists, lawyers, engineers, educators, nurses, community organizers, researchers, accountants, deputies or, like me, union advisors. Many of my comrades at the time are now involved in their union, in active politics, in their community, in social movements. We fight against austerity policies, against racism, for better working conditions, to stop the disaster of climate change. We are everywhere. We occupy all the spaces, to tend towards the social project that 2012 allowed us to imagine as being possible. Maple Spring has made a lot of people crack the inescapable nature of status quo. We are now trying, by all the means within our reach, to widen the crack. […]
It is also by drawing on the experience of previous struggles that this battle was built. A transmission of knowledge took place between militant generations, and the 2012 strike was structured on the basis of knowledge and lessons learned from previous battles. The narrative of the student strike of 2005 was a central tool in the mobilization campaigns that led to that of 2012 – a movement which, moreover, took years to form. This is now happening in the various social movements active in Quebec, as well as in the workplace and in active politics. Militant knowledge spreads through those who took part in the strike movement, just as the workers’ struggles of the past continue to inspire union activism.
Thus, remembering the events of 2012 is not a matter of nostalgia, but of responsibility: a historical responsibility of an activist. The social and political challenges of our century, starting with the climate emergency, require that we use all our strengths and capacities to fight in order to preserve our future and that of future generations. And it turns out that Maple Spring has enabled many people of my generation to develop theoretical and practical knowledge that is very useful in terms of social change. We have a duty to use them, as we already do and as we will continue to do. As they say: it was only the beginning, let’s continue the fight.
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