Fighting union fire with firings
A remarkable thing about the Aug. 18 ransacking of Montreal city hall by firefighters and other unionized employees was how the vandals gleefully went about their business in front of the cameras capturing the scene.
Windows were broken, water glasses hurled, reams of papers flung about as air horns and sirens pierced the air. Elected councillors took refuge while the protesters who had stormed the council chamber behaved as if they had nothing to fear.
Their nonchalance reflected an ingrained culture among Quebec’s more militant unions: When they are aggrieved, they feel free to disrupt others. It’s an attitude familiar to transit riders stranded by wildcat work actions and motorists trapped behind snaking rushhour protests.
On Thursday, Pierre Desrochers, chairman of council’s executive committee, sent a strong signal that the days of impunity are over. The city has fired six firefighters and suspended another 57 unionized workers without pay for periods ranging from one week to six months.
While a union leader called the sanctions unfair, Mr. Desrochers said the “ugly events” of Aug. 18 were a blow to democracy that called for a response. The people fired and suspended participated in “acts of intimidation toward elected officials of an unprecedented seriousness in a free and democratic society,” he said.
“Never will our administration surrender to intimidation, and never will it accept that its citizens be taken hostage by outdated tactics.”
In Quebec City, Municipal Affairs Minister Pierre Moreau said the message to the unions is clear. “The authorities do not tolerate illegal acts,” he said. “We are in a democratic society. We have to accept that some people disagree with positions taken. But we cannot accept that illegal actions be committed.”
The firefighters’ union has been among the most vocal critics of Bill 3, which will restructure municipal pension plans and in override provisions negotiated in collective bargaining. After rallying outside city hall, dozens of firefighters stormed the council chambers. Some attempted to enter Mayor Denis Coderre’s office.
At the time Mr. Coderre called the actions “totally savage and unacceptable.”
Two months earlier, firefighters, police officers and other city workers suffered no repercussions when they walked off the job to stage a mid-afternoon protest outside city hall, blocking traffic and setting a bonfire in the middle of the street.
But the August protest was on a scale not seen in Montreal since blue-collar workers armed with a battering ram tried to force their way into city hall in 1993, causing $35,000 in damage. That riot led to the imprisonment of two union leaders.
Last month, 41 of the firefighters and three other city workers were hit with criminal charges of illegal assembly and interfering with the working of city hall.
Far from being shamed by the outrage that met the assault, the firefighters’ union has called the criminal charges a political reprisal and vowed to defend its members. And on Thursday, union president Ronald Martin, who is among those facing suspension, said the union will contest the firings and suspensions. He warned that the disciplinary action will only embitter the labour situation.
Referring to the storming of city hall as a “noisy protest,” Mr. Martin called the city’s response “unprecedented in the annals of Quebec labour history.”
The penalties assessed are totally out of proportion to the offences alleged, he said.
“To us, these are clearly brutal measures that are going to leave indelible traces and deep scars in our labour relations with the city of Montreal,” he said.
“It is bound to have an unexpected impact on the industrial peace that had been secured with the signing of an eight-year collective agreement lasting until 2018.”
His members, he added, are “dismayed, shocked and disappointed” by the city’s response.