This text is part of the special Syndicalism booklet
As Finance Minister Eric Girard prepares to table his last budget before the general election, the Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ) is calling on the government to reinvest in public services and above all not to go back to austerity policies. While the FTQ has welcomed the measures that have been put in place since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fears the return of austerity policies “as we have already experienced with previous governments”.
The FTQ and the other central labor organizations met with the Minister of Finance as part of his consultations for the preparation of the budget he will present on March 22.
“We warned the Minister that we did not want the implementation of austerity policies to return very quickly to a certain budgetary balance. We have nothing against a balanced budget, of course, but it must be spread out over time, so as not to further undermine our public services, specifies the president of the FTQ, Daniel Boyer. We also mentioned that we should perhaps stop paying amounts into the Generations Fund and use these funds to reinvest them in our public services. »
The Generations Fund is a trust fund created in 2006 by the Quebec government to reduce the public debt. Its management is entrusted to the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec.
Governments pay into it “according to the argument that they do not want to leave debts to future generations”. For the president of the largest labor federation in Quebec, there is now enough money. “I do not want to leave debt to future generations, but I also want to give them quality public services,” he says.
He also believes that these amounts could be used to revive certain sectors of activity which have been damaged during the pandemic, such as hotels, restaurants, tourism or even culture.
Make an informed choice
The next general elections in Quebec will be held next October, and the FTQ has never been silent during the electoral process.
“We have already supported political parties, but that will not be the case in this election,” says Mr. Boyer, who adds that the central labor body has decided to find out the interests of citizens thanks to an omnibus survey conducted with the Leger firm.
Health, education and social inequalities are the important issues that emerge from this exercise, says Mr. Boyer, who adds that his union will therefore support this type of demand.
The FTQ will also provide education on its website, in particular by dissecting the programs of the various political parties.
“It doesn’t matter which party people vote for, I have no problem with that, as long as they know what they’re voting for, and that’s not always the case. We want to inform our members about what each of the parties is proposing to us based on the demands we have. This is the kind of education we do so that our members can make the most informed choice possible when voting,” explains Daniel Boyer.
Estates General of Trade Unionism
In addition to the elections and negotiations of collective agreements in the public sector this fall, the FTQ will hold its 33and congress in November.
This event, which takes place every three years and which brings together 1,500 union delegates, is intended this year to be an opportunity to reflect on and prepare for the future of the labor movement in view of the holding of the Estates General of unionism in Quebec.
“Several other central unions are of the same opinion, we have to think about our future and we have to redefine ourselves,” says Mr. Boyer. We saw it with the pandemic, there is telework, there are new forms of work that are coming, we have to think about how we can allow these workers to have access to unionization and how to maintain our activism union in these new forms of work. »
Daniel Boyer recognizes that the trade union movement has a lot to think about, because society is moving towards a diversification of work and working methods with artificial intelligence and robotization.
“The union community must reflect on how it is replacing itself in this framework, and that is why it is important for us to hold the states general of unionism,” concludes the president of the FTQ.