a

MONTREAL — “‘Yes I think
ne support of the trade union
novement in the rest of Canada is
‘ery important to our strike,”
sylvio Gagnon, general secretary
f the Confederation of National
“rade Unions, (CSN), told the
“ribune Jan. 28.

“It’s very important to the
norale of a group of workers in
onflict to know that standing at
heir side are workers who appre-
iate their struggle is an important
ne not just for them but for the
vorking class as a whole.”’

Gagnon’s reaction was similar
© that of many other Quebec
workers responding to expres-
sions of moral support that have
»eeN arriving at the three main unions in the Common Front.

CSN member Dianne Fontaine said Labor’s support at this time is
critical. ‘‘We’ve never had a government that has come so close to

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

SYLVIO GAGNON

~ destroying the trade union movement,”’ she said. ‘‘In resisting such a

erocious attack we'll need as much support from the rest of the labor
novement as we can possible get.”’

Thousands cheered, Jan. 29, at the front’s massive rally in Quebec
City when Quebec Federation of Labor President Louis Laberge
brought support messages from the Canadian Labor Congress and
other trade union organizations and federations. Since then more sup-
port has flowed in from across the country.

In the Feb. 1 issue of La Presse, the largest circulation French daily
in North America, an advertisement appeared supporting the Common
Front and signed by Grace Hartman, president of the Canadian Union
of Public Employees, Fred Pomeroy, Communications Workers of
Canada, Public Service Alliance of Canada President Pierre Samson,
Dick Barry United Electrical workers, Jean-Claude Parrot, Canadian
Union of Postal Workers, and John Fryer of the National Union of
Provincial Government Employees.

While the Quebec media has focussed on backing the government

_ position and trying to break up the unity of the Common Front, the real

issues, the personal needs and demands of the workers on the street,
have been ignored or buried.

“There’s all this talk about essential services being stopped by the
Strikers,"’ a Haitian nurse who didn’t want to be identified told the
Tribune, “but I tell you that the government cutbacks have done more
damage to the services in my hospital than any strike will.”’

ACSN member, she works ina psychiatric hospital. Interviewed on
the eve of the unsuccessful, tentative hospital workers’ agreement, she
expected to be on strike at midnight Jan. 31.

“We're going out because our working conditions are intolerable
due to government cutbacks,”’ the psychiatric nurse said. ‘‘We don’t
even get enough time, now, to really speak to the patients.

“We're so overworked, we can’t speak to them, we can’t listen to
their complaints or answer their questions. It’s always: ‘wait, wait,
wait’, when they call on us. I say that’s an intolerable situation in a
mental hospital.”’

Dianne Fontaine works with handicapped kids.
month, net, from my pay’’, she said, as a result
month government-imposed wage rollback.

“The government also wanis to increase my work week from 32 to
35 hours a week with no increase in pay. There’s been a policy in effect
for some time now, of not replacing people when they leave, and now
se geen won't even bring in replacements when people take sick
leave.

“We feel completely deceived and outraged over this government’s
actions’’, Fontaine said of her fellow strikers who hit the bricks Jan. 28.

The psychiatric ‘nurse, who has experienced repression first hand in
her native Haiti, said her fellow workers welcome Canadian trade
union solidarity. ‘The labor movement is the force that makes us
stronger, and that’s important in a country that seems to be moving
further away from democracy.”

The CSN’s Gagnon summed it up this way: ‘‘We need the solidarity
of workers in English-speaking Canada just as they need ours. In
whatever way we can, we try to give workers in struggle in the rest of
Canada our message of solidarity. And more concretely, this spring
when we organize our great march for jobs, we'd like to see the
workers in the rest of Canada join us in Ottawa on May 28.”

“I'm losing $220 a
of the 20%, three-

Unions, organizations and Confederation of National

individuals wishing to for- Trade Unions, 2
ward messages of solidarity Donatien Corriveau, president, | 2
to the Common Front can 1601 Rue Delormier, wy
write or telex to the following © Montreal, Quebec, =
locations. H2K 3W4 8
Quebec Federation of Labor Centrale de I’Enseignement Fd
Louis Laberge, president du Quebec, s
2100 rue Papineau, Yvon Charbonneau, president, | 2}
de étape, 2336 Chemin Ste-Foy, Flo
Montreal, Que., Quebec, Quebec,

H2X 4J4 GIV 1S5 picket outside the University de Quebec a-Montreal

By MIKE PHILLIPS

QUEBEC — Songs of solidar-
ity and defiant slogans rang from
the streets of the provincial capi-
tal, Jan. 29, as more than 55,000
strikers showed the Levesque
government the power driving the
historic general strike of the
Common Front of public sector
workers.

They came from every corner
of Quebec to rally on the doorstep
of the National Assembly and to
back the Common Front’s de-
mands for the return to free
collective bargaining rights, re-
turn to the bargaining table, the
repeal of the arbitrary bills 70 and
105, and for an end to all forms of
repression by the Parti Quebecois
government against the trad
union movement.

““We know that the pressure for
splitting the Common Front will
be great over the next two or three
days’’, Yvon Charbonneau,
leader of the 90,000-member Cen-
trale de l’Enseignement du
Quebec, (CEQ), told the rally.

“But it is the government's
biggest defeat at this time, that it
has been unable to break up the
Common Front. There’s only one
way for us to break through the
repressive laws we have on our
backs, or those that will fall‘on us
in the days to come, and that’s to
stand shoulder to shoulder on the
picket lines, and shoulder to
shoulder in our trade union
Meetings,’ he said. —_— eu

To the enthusiastic cheers of
the army of supporters outside’
the National Assembly, Char-
bonneau declared: ‘‘We want a
country without arbitrary decrees
and unemployment; we want. to
be able to live proudly and on our
feet; and we want to march to-
gether right to the end, right to our
victory.”’

From a 20 foot high podium, so
the thousands of proters could see
them, the Common Front leaders
and leaders of other trade unions

not in the front, but negotiating
for new agreements, such as the
nurses and civil servants, de-
nounced the PQ government and
urged the strikers to stand united.

Confederation of National
Trade Unions, president Dona-
tien Corriveau, (CNTU-CSN),
told the protesters that their pre-
sence in numbers exceeding the
organizers’ estimates was proof
to Premier Rene Levesque that
opposition to the $400-million
wage cut in the public sector, and
attacks on job security came from
the rank and file of the labor
movement in Quebec and not just
the union leadership.

““We’re "50,000 here today’’,
Corriveau said, ‘‘and we must
continue to fight. On May 28 we
must be 100,000 in Ottawa to tell
both governments, (the feds and
Quebec): ‘You're going to get us
jobs — jobs are the fundamental
question’.”’

May 28 is the tentative date set
for the culmination of a Quebec-
wide march for jobs being
launched by the labor centrals. It
is to be co-ordinated with local
protests and activities around the
demand for jobs, and plans are to
cap it by a giant rally on Parlia-
ment Hill on that date.

Louis Laberge, president of the
Quebec Federation of Labor,
brought greetings to the rally and
the Common Front from the
Canadian trade union movement.
He reported messages of support
were arriving daily from many
labor bodies and union organ-
izations and singled out Canadian
Labor Congress president Dennis
McDermott, the Ontario Fed-
eration of Labor, the Metro To-
ronto Labor Council, the United
Auto Workers, and the Canadian
Union of Public Employees.

Among other organizations
who have also expressed their
support to general strike and the
Common Front are the Canadian

Massive protest reveals power
behind militant general strike —

Union of Postal Workers, the i
United Electrical workers, thé”
B.C. Marineworkers and Boilet
makers and the Action Caucus:

The CEQ’s Charbonneal
summed up the mood of the pit
test when he declared: ‘“Wet
here today to express our disgust
our deception and our disilld
sionment with this gang of i
negades, who far from the wo!
ers, away from the Quebecoh
people have chosen to gov!
through division, through
order through force and throug!
violence.

‘“‘We are on strike, and We
come here to declare to
government of impotents that #
has become our national shame
and our social enemy.” ;

Marshalled from three separa i
assembly points, the three a
union centrals converged into 3
militant stream of angry t es
unionists on the boulevard lead:
ing to the Quebec Nation#
Assembly buildings. Hl

With banners flying and sound
trucks blasting out music, slogal®”
and pre-recorded interviews Wi
the three leaders of the Commo!
Front, the workers gave voice
the demands of one of the largest
protests ever seen in the capita

‘We're here to make thé
government respect us’’, was.
rallying call of the demonstratio®:
The songs and slogans whi¢
echoed from the streets of oné
Canada’s oldest cities pro
claimed: ‘‘No to repression! NO
return to the big blackout, (a t&
ference to the Duplessis regime t®
which many signs and slogans
compared the present Levesque
government)! Back to the bal
gaining table! No to discrimin@
tion against women! No to layofis
and cutbacks! No to anti-uniol
decrees!”’ :

And perhaps one of the most
telling of the day’s slogans: ‘‘Wé
won't pay for the crisis — quality
public services for all!’’

Montreal police riot squad looks on, batons at the ready as Common Front strikers in the educational secto!
, (QAM). The cops were called to protect scabs and

students as they crossed the strikers’ pickets.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 11, 1983—Page 6 |