LABOR

Demo challenges PQ curb on bargaining

By CLAIRE DaSYLVA

QUEBEC — More than 30,000 public
sector workers from every corner of
Quebec packed the National Assembly
grounds, April 20, to demand the right to
collective bargaining.

The protest was the work of a coalition
of 19 organizations, including Quebec’s
four trade union centrals, to oppose legis-
lation introduced in the Assembly last
Christmas by treasury board minister
Michel Clair that will drive the public

—— These two dummies whose real life look-
alikes thought there would be clear sail-
ing ahead for their laws are Rene Leves-
que (I) and Michel Clair. 3

sector collective bargaining process back
20 years.

The three main contingents represent-
ing the CEQ (Teachers Federation);
CSN (Confederation of National Trade
Unions) and FTQ (Quebec Federation of
Labor) marshalled their members in
three separate locations and converged
in front of the Assembly under the
watchful eyes of a couple of dozen
provincial police.

The cops were likely worried about the.

’ security of the statue of former premier

Maurice Duplessis, which the current
PQ government reinstalled on the As-
sembly grounds. Many in the trade union
movement have taken to comparing
Quebec Premier Rene Levesque to
Duplessis for his anti-labor policies.

Union leaders from the private sector,
including Claude Ducharme of the
United Auto Workers and a represen-
tative of the Amalgamated Clothing and
Textile Workers, joined the platform
which included the CEQ’s Yvon Char-
bonneau, the CSN’s Gerald Larose, and
Fernand Daoust, general secretary of the
Quebec Federation of Labor.

In lieu of speeches by the leaders, a
common declaration was read to the
throng of protestors calling on the Parti
Québecois government to withdraw its
anti-union legislation. The coalition’s
declaration accused the government of
launching a frontal attack on the entire
trade union movement in the public
sector.

The government, it said, wants to
permanently impose the kind of repres-
sive laws it has used in the past to crush
public sector strikes, but can no longer
politically afford the fallout. So it has
drafted a whole new bargaining system
designed to permanently hamstring the
public sector unions and destroy the
common front that took 20 years of pa-

PHOTOS — COMBAT

a*

Some of the 30,000 angry trade unionists and supporters who gathered outside the
ril 20 to protest Clair’s draft public and para-

National Assembly in Quebec City on Ap
public labor legislation.

tient organization and militant struggle to
build up.

If the Clair proposals go through, the
declaration said, it will destroy the trade
union rights of the public sector unions,
further erode and undermine public ser-
vices, including education and health
care, and will wipe out the gains public
service workers have made in rights and
working conditions over the past de-
cades.

The Clair Plan is also a direct attack on
women, inasmuch as women make up
the vast majority of public sector work-
ers, and are the last hired and first fired.

And since the proposals seek to tie

public sector wage levels and those in the

private sector, this will have the added
impact of further driving wages down in
that sector. As the declaration pointed
out, “‘since the Levesque government

tore up our collective agreements to roll _
back our wages, how many unions in the ~
private sector have had to re-open their
contracts, accept increased work loads, —
wage freezes and even cutbacks?”

In calling for the government to scrap
the Clair Plan, the protesters, through
their declaration, also demanded that the —
right of public sector workers to strike —
and to bargain collectively be main-~
tained. ~

They warned Levesque, Clair and th
National Assembly deputies: ““You wi
find us on your tail as long as you haven#
dropped your anti-union, anti-workerT,
and anti-public services plan.

‘*We will not allow your government.
to impose on us or on the people of
Quebec a 20-year rollback of our trade
union rights or our education, health care”
and public services. E

Answer to PQ must be political action

News in English Canada about the labor movement
in Quebec is always sketchy at best. This does not
mean that the laws of the class struggle do not apply in
French Canada, only that the unfolding of such struggle
goes largely unreported in the big business press.

The recent march of 30,000 workers in Quebec City
demanding the right of public sector workers to nego-
tiate in the face of the Levesque government’s attack
on the right to bargain and to strike was overshadowed
by the earth-shattering drug bust of 17 bikers in
Montreal, and the crowning of a California woman as
the world’s top female body builder.

Now, the real ‘significance of the mass rally in
Quebec City is not to be found in the numbers who
turned out, significant as they were. For we are mindful
that the working class of Quebec is still smarting from
the attack two years ago by the Levesque government
on 300,000 public sector workers.

At that time the lack of full mobilization and total
commitment to the teacher .: struggle led to a retreat.
So, the path for Quebec workers, from the threat of an
unlimited general strike to the current demonstration,
has been a tortured one.

Leaky Ship
Last year, the Quebec Federation of Labor hit an
all-time militancy low as it opted for the infamous
Solidarity Fund, which Quebec workers would join so
the employers could use workers’ money to bail out the
leaky capitalist ship.
While the Solidarity Fund is an admitted total failure

(with less than 2,000 subscribers at $100 a crack, at last”

count), the preoccupation with the fund by the QFL
leadership has been to the exclusion of seriously taking
up the attack on Quebec workers both by the em-
ployers and the government.

Worse, QFL leader Louis Laberge’s warm embrace
of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (the former axeman

Labor in action

of the Iron Ore Company of Canada and now guillotine
operator for all of Canadian monopoly), evoked more
than one grimace from Canadian trade unionists who
remember another Louis Laberge.

They remember the leader who was unprepared to
sacrifice trade union principle and the sacred trust of
his membership when he became the involuntary guest
of the monopoly state in quite a different way.

Louis the Lion?

They remember a Louis who could kindle even the
remotest spark of militancy into a force which had the
masters of industry trembling. Now instead of the roar-
ing lion from Quebec, they witness the purring pussy-
cat, while 400,000 Quebec workers are unemployed
and the attacks on labor continue unabated.

Burned out? Maybe. We hope not!

But burnout is not afflicting the rest of the labor
movement, as the Parti Québecois government must
have so. deluded itself last Christmas when it intro-
duced legislation effectively stripping public sector
workers of the right to bargain and to, strike.

The Clair Bill, (named after Treasury Board minister

« Michel Clair) has now galvanized the Quebec labor

movement into another round of fightback, of which

the recent demonstration of 30,000 is only the begin-
ning.

The greeting for Pierre Marc Johnson, March 24,
when angry shipyard workers in Sorel drove the PQ
Justice Minister out of town is but another example of
the rising anger of the working class.

Suddenly it is the Parti Québecois which is in crisis,
as its attacks on the working class start to boomerang.

A Real Choice
And just when the ruling circles of Quebec begin to
rub their hands in glee at the prospects of a major

Te mere ane RR

victory in the next election, Quebec labor throws yet tT

another ringer into the pot.

The Confederation of National Trade Unions at its
recent policy conference unanimously endorsed a re-
solution from their Communications Federation to
make political action and political organization of work-
ing people ‘‘a priority”’.

Such a move will no longer leave the Quebec work-
ing class at the mercy of hostile political parties, and if
combined with a spirited and united campaign of the
other Quebec labor central and the Canadian Labor
Congress around labor’s alternative economic and poli-

tical program, will contribute heavily to the strengthen- —

ing of the trade union movement.

_ The new PQ budget indicates that the CNTU resolu-
tion couldn’t have been more timely. Finance Minister
Yvon Duhaime has brought in a budget which would
have done any right wing, anti-working class govern-
ment in Canada proud in its monetarist anti-popular
character.

But notwithstanding the machinations of a govern-
ment which has thrown aside all pretense of being 4
friend of workers or national rights, the CNTU resolu-
tion, if fully implemented will give the people of
pie Se a real choice, both now and in the next gene

lection.

18 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 1, 1985