This text is part of the special booklet Defining priorities on the large table of commitments
For Caroline Senneville, elected president of the CSN in 2021, an election campaign is an opportunity to put the cards on the table, to present clear demands and to encourage social debate. The central union, which represents more than 320,000 members, wants the fate of workers to be an important election issue.
From the outset, the president reminds that the CSN does not engage in partisan politics, but that it will not hesitate to remind its members of the demands it will defend in the campaign. And it’s a safe bet that support for workers and the labor shortage will quickly enter the social debate.
“Labour is a precious resource, it must be taken care of. […] In the field, we talk about overtime, work overload, accelerated pace, we are always training new people, and so on. These are all risk factors for more workplace accidents and more mental health problems. That’s why we need to have a long-term vision to meet the challenges of workers. This is the role of a government, the very meaning of the word to govern. Yes, he has imponderables. No one could have predicted the pandemic, but the labor shortage? She had been anticipated for a long time. This is not just a question for the CAQ government, which has been in power for four years. We knew it before them, but we pretended it was something that didn’t exist. […] It seems that as long as we don’t have our noses glued to the problem, we don’t react, ”she laments.
The crying needs of public services
Pleading first of all for a major reinvestment in public services, she recalls that society has already suffered enough from the cuts of the past decades. “I would like young people to stay in school, for people to be treated, for us to take care of our elders, summarizes Mme Senneville. The unions repeat that we are approaching the breaking point. »
If in recent years, the social safety net stretched to the maximum has broken in some places, it is urgent to repair it, and the president insists that there is no need to distinguish between health, education, “real economy” social services. “Our industries cannot function if there are no schools to train people and no health care system to take care of them. To function, Quebec needs strong social infrastructures, she reminds us.
18, the goal to achieve
To support her request to raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour, the president talks about what it takes to survive. “Look at the price of a three and a half apartment in Montreal and calculate 40 hours a week at a salary of $18, then add the groceries, the bus pass, etc. It’s amazing how in a society like ours, you can tell people that they’ll go to work full time, but they’ll still go to a food bank, or if they break a tooth, they won’t be able to go to the dentist. This is real life. »
Claiming more dignity for minimum wage workers, it invites us to change the paradigm and to question the conditions of all low wage earners.
Grow our industries
Caroline Senneville, who is also calling for a clear industrial strategy, wonders about the sectors to be developed currently and the means we are giving ourselves to get there.
“You have to have a game plan, a five-year, ten-year vision. This is how we manage to set up structured projects [et structurants]. If we are talking about the workings of the economy, all of that has to be connected, that one sector does not harm the other, but rather supports it. »
The environment and economy duality
For some, these are two spheres that are totally incompatible. For her part, the president hopes that we will finally stop opposing the economy and the environment, allowing herself to add that the environment is not a great strength of the current government.
“Environmental disasters hurt the economy. […] You have to have a positive discourse to have positive actions and be proud of what you are proposing in relation to the environment. There is no shortage of expert files; there are some ideas. An economy that is sustainable, an economy that is sustainable, is an economy that will be and must be increasingly respectful of the environment. »
Take the time to talk
For the CSN, the election campaign is also an opportunity to claim a place for workers at the tables where decisions are made. “From one government to another, it is to start again. This is not necessarily synonymous with closure, but there may be reflexes that are not always developed, specifies the president. We have solutions, ideas. They may not all be good, but if you add them to those of others and mix it all up, something interesting can come out of it. My job is to improve the lot of the workers I represent, but through certain demands, such as the minimum wage or drug insurance, we act for the good of society in general. Governments should not deprive themselves of this story. »
And if the dialogue sometimes adds another step, the president believes that it makes it possible to build something even more solid. “There are 4.3 million workers in Quebec. All people getting up to go to work and keep our economy rolling, that’s what makes it work […], but they are humans and must be taken into account. »