The Decibel - School shutdowns, hospital delays and a massive strike in Quebec

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

There are over a half million public-sector workers on strike in Quebec this week. This comes after an offer from François Legault’s government, which the multiple unions involved in negotiations rejected.The strikes – some of which started weeks ago – seem to have strong public support despite schools being shut down and delays piling up at hospitals. Frédérik-Xavier Duhamel, a staff reporter based in Montreal, discusses whether there’s an end in sight.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

So I'm at Collège Rosemont in Montreal. It's a CEGEP, an institution we have in Quebec between high school and university. There are a few dozen people on a picket line here with signs for the Common Front, which is on strike this week. This is one of the many picket lines all over Quebec. There are hundreds of thousands of workers striking after the unions rejected the government's latest offer. This one woman did not give me her name, but I saw that she held a sign for the Common Front

and a sign for the FAE, which is another union not part of the Common Front, which is also on strike. I asked her if she was part of the Common Front or the FAE, and she told me both, and both her workplaces are on strike. It just gives a sense of how widespread the strikes are right now in Quebec. Schools are shut down and delays are building in hospitals. So I spoke with Frédéric Xavier Duhamel, who goes by FX,

and he'll explain the issues at the center of this widespread labor unrest. I'm Menaka Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. FX, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me, Menaka. To start, FX, can you just tell us who exactly is involved in the strikes that we're seeing now in Quebec? So there are three groups. The largest group is the Common Front. It's a group of four unions that are known by their initials. There is the CSN, the CSQ, the FTQ, and the APTS. And those are about 420,000 workers. They include teachers and nurses and care attendants,

but also people like plumbers and all sorts of professions and workers who work in public institutions. There's also the Fédération Interprofessionnelle de la Santé du Québec, which is the FIQ, who represents about 80,000 nurses and other health care professionals who are striking this week until Thursday. And there's the FAE, which is a teachers union of about 66,000 teachers who have been on an open-ended strike since November 23rd. So let's put this into context then. How big is this collective job action? Like how many people are on strike right now in Quebec? It's huge. It's more than half a million workers. And it's extremely disruptive because, you know, hundreds of schools are shut down, healthcare procedures

are being delayed, surgeries, blood draws, things like that. Yeah, it's having a big impact. Okay, yeah. So as you say, like over half a million people involved in this job action this week. How long have the strikes been going on now? It's been going on for a while. So the FAE has been, as I mentioned, on an open-ended strike since November 23rd. But the two other JIRU groups, so the Common Front and the FAQ, they also held a few days of strike in November. So their actions have been escalating since then. And all unions have been negotiating for months. For example, the FAE, they have been without contracts since April 1st. So there's been a long build-up to the job

actions we're seeing right now. Last week, I spoke with Gérard Boismenu, who's a professor of political science at the University of Montreal. And he told me that it's been a long time since the Quebec government faced a union movement that was so cohesive and thoughtful in its strategy of negotiation and action. So it's clear that there's a lot of thought put into how they conduct the job action right now. Okay, so let's dig into, I guess, the issues that are at stake here a little bit more. Let's start with the teachers, FX. What are their concerns that have led to them striking? So all the unions are asking for pay raises, but they're also asking for better working

conditions. And for teachers, it means better class composition, because many teachers have been complaining about having to deal with a lot of students with special needs, which can take a lot of time and resources. Another thing teachers are asking for is for the flexibility to be able to work from home on professional development days as students are already at home. Okay, so that's the teachers. A lot of nursing staff are also on strike. What about the nursing staff? FIQ nurses and other healthcare professionals have been asking for a large

pay raise as well as the replacement of weekend premiums with higher weekend salary, which would then contribute to their retirement pensions and more accommodating work schedules as well. Okay, so it sounds like really a common thing here between the unions are asking for more money. So wages seems to be a common thing here, which I guess isn't too surprising because inflation has been such a big concern over the past few years now. But FX, let's get into some specifics. How big of an increase are these unions asking for? Yes. So the unions are asking for pay raises that are tied to the inflation rate to make sure that workers don't lose purchasing power with inflation and are also getting richer over time. In its latest offer, the government has offered a 12.7% pay raise over five years, which the government says

represents the predicted inflation over the next five years. But unions have decried that this ignores the very high inflation that we've seen in 2022, and also does not meet their expectation for an additional raise on top of the inflation rate to fill the gap with private sector workers. So this is, yeah, the unions are asking for what's called a COLA, a cost of living adjustment, right? So this is basically tying the wage increase to inflation. So if inflation is going up a lot, their wages should go up a lot. That's what they're asking for. Yes. How have the unions reacted then to the most recent offer by

the government? They all rejected it. 12.7% over five years, they said, is not enough to protect workers purchasing power, let alone making them richer. And they've also contrasted this offer with what the government offered provincial police officers, for example, earlier in the summer, which was about 21% over five years and public sector workers say, then why don't we deserve the same? Of course, the government is saying there are differences between the offers that make them look more different than what they actually are for workers. And that there are differentiated offers depending on the job and on the specific role based on factors like the difficulty in recruitment for certain roles. a broader context where the Quebec government has been announcing very large amounts of spending for things like a new battery plant, the new Nordvolt battery plant, where the government had

billions of dollars ready to welcome Nordvolt in Quebec. And now they're saying, when faced with the public sector workers' demands, François Legault, the government is saying we need to respect Quebecers' capacity to pay. There's also been this recent announcement where the government said they would subsidize $5 to $7 million to host pre-season games for the Los Angeles Kings in Quebec City. Right. Whereas, reportedly, the Canadienien Montréal, the local team, would have been able to do that for free, which has enraged people. And it just plays out in this broader context

of frustration for public sector workers and Quebecers more widely. Okay, so that's kind of the perspective of the union. How has the government of Quebec, and I guess in particular, Premier François Legault, how have they responded then to the union's positions? Premier François Legault and other government officials have been saying that unions must respect the Quebecers' capacity to pay.

But of course, this has been seen as not very credible in the face of all the other expenses that were announced recently. And also, in the past few weeks, a common theme for François Legault has been for him asking unions to show flexibility and accept more flexible work schedule arrangements, for example. He's been saying if the unions would accept more flexibility, then he would be willing to offer better pay. We'll be back after this message. Okay, so this is really, it's sounding like there is a bit of an impasse here. There's some negotiations happening, but this is why these strikes are occurring this week, because the offer has not been acceptable for the unions. I guess we should come back to the impact of the strikes, FX. We touched on this a little bit earlier, but this has got to have a huge impact on the lives of Quebecers, right? So, for example, kids can't be

in school if the teachers are on strike, right? So what are parents saying about the effects that it's having on kids since they've been out of school for a few weeks now? Yes, many kids are out of school. Parents are scrambling however they can to take care of their children in other ways, find a babysitter. Or if they work from home, they have them with them. I've talked to a mother who her workplace is on strike and she offered other parents to host their kids at her home. So she has four kids of her own and she's hosting seven more kids or a total of 11 because other parents need a place to send their kids. But the parents I've talked to, they've all stressed that they support teachers who are on strike and other public sector workers. And that's in line with polls that we've seen recently. Public opinion, by and large, in Quebec is in support of the workers.

During COVID, there was a lot of learning lost as well. Time in the classroom was just not there. So this, I guess, must just be kind of an additional thing for parents to worry about in this way. Absolutely. Yes. Parents still have COVID in mind and they don't want their kids to miss even more school. And what's particularly frustrating about the labor conflict right now is that as opposed to COVID, this was avoidable and preventable and predictable because of the work contract that expired months ago. What about consequences in health care then, in hospitals? I mean, the strikes haven't been happening quite as much there as in schools, but I imagine there's been some sort of impact on health care in Quebec.'t received an answer from the government. But it's clear that it's affecting surgeries, that it's affecting more benign procedures like blood draws and things like that, and probably services as well in long-term care homes and in hospitals.

I've talked to Paul Brunet, who is president of the Conseil pour les Malades du Québec, which is a patient's rights advocacy group. And he says that they're looking at the situation closely to make sure that patients' rights are not disregarded. And it's a public health care system that is already extremely strained. And last time I checked, there were more than 30,000 people in Quebec who had been waiting for surgery for more than a year or so. So this is a longstanding issue, it sounds like. There's been delays for not just the

amount of time people are on strike. It goes back quite a while. Yeah, so that's the thing that also plays in the broader context of the public sector workers in healthcare in particular, but also in education in other places, they're making the argument that they need better working conditions to give better services. Because staffing shortages have been exacerbating the problems with the delivery of services and people are seeing that. It's very hard, you know, since the pandemic in particular, wait times in emergency rooms is through the roof. They're all extremely busy at all times in Quebec. Wait time for a surgery is through the roof. Many people don't have a family doctor and it's very hard for them to have access to health care professionals.

And so public service workers are saying, you know, if we want to resolve the problems we have with the delivery of services, then we need better conditions to make this possible. And it really resonates with people in Quebec a lot. Yeah. I mean, as you mentioned earlier, right, public opinion seems to be generally on the side of the unions. So FX, what kind of impact have the strikes had on people's views of the Legault government? If they're generally in support of the union's action here, what are their perceptions of the government? It's hard to differentiate between the impact of the strike and the impact of other issues on polls. But recent polls have shown that the government is losing popularity very fast. In the recent poll, I think Mr. Legault was the least popular premier of all Canada. And it's really a

striking change because not very long ago, Mr. Legault was among the most, if not the most, popular premier in the country. And he, you know, just a year ago, won the majority government in a huge landslide. So it's really difficult times for Mr. Legault and his government right now. I think I have to ask the obvious question. I know it's not necessarily easy to answer, but is there an end in sight here? Like, how long could the strike action go on? And could we see more of these coordinated general strikes that involve so many workers across the province? go through 2024 and continue after the holidays. Union leaders have said that they really want to get back to work, but they also want to negotiate. And they really seem to be in a standstill with the government right now. The rhythm of negotiations have increased in recent weeks with the pressure of the strikes.

But both unions and the government are careful not to negotiate too much in the public space. They want to keep it at the table. So it's hard to say the extent of the gains and the concessions on one part and the other. FX, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you for having me. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.

David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Cheung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.