This text is part of the special section Unionism
The end of 2023 ended after 22 days of strike for teachers who are members of the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE). According to the president of the Alliance of Professors of Montreal (APPM), affiliated with the FAE, Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre, even if this period resulted in the signing of an agreement in principle in a “particularly stormy” manner. , it was above all marked by “the unexpected support of so many people”.
Grocery gift cards, chocolates and cakes, financial support and verbal encouragement; the strikers felt particularly supported by the population on the picket lines last fall. This mobilization also contributed to advancing negotiations with the government, according to Mme Beauvais-St-Pierre.
But citizens were not the only ones to support teachers; several unions, including the United Steelworkers, Unifor and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, made donations amounting to several tens of thousands of dollars each, providing significant support to the strikers while they were deprived salary.
A gradual awakening
According to the president of the APPM, the pandemic period allowed the population to realize the extent of the work of teachers. “Parents discovered that it was not so easy to teach their children,” says M.me Beauvais-St-Pierre. This raised awareness of the place that school plays in the social context. »
This role was highlighted again during the last strike, when children no longer had access to the food support programs they usually benefited from. “It is not normal that the well-being of children depends [principalement] of what the school can offer them in terms of support, deplores Mme Beauvais-St-Pierre. Not just teaching, but everything else. » She adds that this event exacerbated “the flaws in the social safety net”.
According to the president, also a teacher, the “messups” of the 2023 school year also “struck the imagination”. Last August, there was a shortage of 2,000 teachers to fill full-time positions and 3,000 others for part-time tasks in the 1,600 schools where members of the Fédération québécoise des directions d’establishment d’enseignement (FQDE) work.
The media coverage the strike received also played an important role in popular awareness of the challenges facing the teaching profession, adds the president. She notes that this has helped humanize the role of those who work in schools. “People understand that teachers were not in the street just to get a better salary and a better pension,” confides the teacher. They are also no longer able to give your children what they should have on a daily basis in their classrooms. »
While parents had to work while their children sat next to them, says Mme Beauvais-St-Pierre, teachers received numerous messages of thanks from them for having “sacrificed[é] their salary for public school. »
Other battles to fight
Even if this strike ended with an agreement in principle, other struggles remain, recalls the president of the APPM. The latter denounces in particular the persistence of the three-tier school system, this stratification of the Quebec system composed of ordinary classes, selective programs and private schools. “We want to put an end to this operation, the existence of which the government denies, in order to create an egalitarian school, which gives all students the chance to succeed. »
His organization also wants to interest the government “in the particularities” of Montreal public schools, which reflect the inequalities of the multi-speed system. Indeed, the classes in the mainland establishments are often made up of children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and young people in difficulty, some of whom are learning French.
She also deplores “a commodification of education”, where the main aim of the school system is to “train workers, people who will enter the job market and pay taxes”. “What we want is to be able to share knowledge and train future citizens,” she pleads.
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