Quebec on strike?

To strike, or not to strike? That is the question facing the 500,000 unionized workers in the Quebec public service. As the provincial government tightens Quebecers’ belts with a second “austerity budget,” and disgruntled students again take to the streets, the big question is whether they will be joined this fall by a common front of teachers, hospital workers, administrators and other government employees in a general strike. The province has seen such walkouts before, the largest being in 1972 and 1989. While the conflicts were met with back-to-work legislation, both time unions also won higher salaries and benefits for their members.

So on March 31, the date their collective agreements with the Quebec government expired, 2,500 union delegates took the day to meet in Quebec City to reflect on next steps. While negotiations have not formally begun, both sides have staked out their positions since last fall. The government is offering a two-year salary freeze, followed by increases of 1% a year for three years. It is also proposing to raise the public-sector retirement age to 62 from 60, and calculate pensions based on the eight best years of salary, as opposed to the current five. On their end, the unions are demanding a 13.5% increase in salary over three years, and oppose any changes to the retirement age or pension calculation.

At first blush, the positions are so far apart, any negotiation seems doomed to fail. But with a $275-billion debt, and interest payments of $11 billion a year, Premier Philippe Couillard can rightly say that the province’s finances need a major housecleaning — starting with the government itself. A recent report by the Institut de Statistique de Quebec showed that public-sector workers receive 2.3% more in global pay and benefits than non-unionized workers in the province. Some, such as service workers, receive 20% more than their privatesector counterparts. And while municipal and federal government workers earn more than provincial employees, Quebec has no intention — and no resources — to match those levels of compensation.

Nevertheless, at an afternoon panel on the legitimacy of strike action, it was clear that pro-strike passions run deep. A suggestion that Quebecers may be tired of protests after the students’ Maple Spring of 2012 didn’t go over very well (translation: I was practically booed off the stage). Former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe’s exhortation that the union should not open its negotiations with a threat of strikes elicited a more restrained response. In contrast, the prostrike remarks by Laval University professor Jean-Noel Grenier received a standing ovation, accompanied by thunderous chants of “So-soso-so-solidarité.”

But the union leadership may have other ideas. In an interview with Journal de Montréal journalist Dominic Maurais, CSN union president Jacques Letourneau appeared to distance himself from the student protesters, musing that, “You can protest all you want against oil, but what does it get you?” And in their press conference at the end of the meeting, Daniel Boyer, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), remarked “What we want above all is to negotiate our members’ working conditions in good faith. But we know we will have to exercise some pressure, go a little heavier, maybe even up to a strike.”

What emerged from the day is that the unions are prepared to strike if necessary, but not necessarily strike. The big question will be how far Couillard is willing to go to avoid strike action — or whether he believes that public opinion will side with the government. As one delegate put it, “Strikes only are effective if they are disruptive.” But too much disruption can cause a backlash, especially when public servants are seen to have it better than the rest of the taxpaying public.

Couillard may also be counting on the reputation of his soon-to-be adversary, MNA and likely PQ leader Pierre Karl Péladeau, to encourage the unions to settle their differences amicably. In his former tenure as president of Quebecor, Péladeau oversaw the lockout of hundreds of employees at Le Journal de Montréal, and was notably ruthless in his dealings with labour, so much so that the FTQ at one point threatened to work against his leadership campaign.

And not much appears to have changed. In the bright Quebec City sunshine of March 31, as union delegates formed a human chain in front the Quebec legislature on their lunch hour, one of my fellow panelists witnessed Péladeau pushing his way through the picket line, on his way to work, without batting an eye. Solidarite, indeed.