Quebec Government Steps Up
Anti-Social Offensive
All Out to Support the Fight of Public Sector Workers for Their Rights and for Public Services the People Need
Unions representing the 500,000 Quebec public
sector workers attempting to renew their collective agreements in a way
that favours them and public services report that the Quebec government
and management bargaining committees have tabled their sectoral offers,
which concern working conditions. The central offer, which deals with
monetary issues such as wages and pensions, was filed at the end of
2019 and is considered a provocation by the workers. The wage "offer"
would see wages increase by even less than the cost of living over five
years. The unions have now also filed their sectoral demands.
The unions report definite common features of the
sectoral offers of the Quebec government and its bargaining agents.
According to the unions, they consist mainly of nice-sounding phrases
about the importance of social programs and public services and
proclamations of respect for public sector workers. They are without
concrete proposals, especially in response to the demands put forward
by the workers and their unions for drastic improvements in working
conditions and services.
Several unions also report that when the health,
education and public services authorities' bargaining committees met
their union counterparts to table their offers, they asked that the
unions and the workers stop speaking out publicly against the bad
conditions in the sector. They equated the workers' speaking out with
badmouthing the public sector. This, according to the employers'
representatives, is why workers leave the sector and why so few are
joining it.
Although the offers do not contain concrete
proposals, according to the unions the offers suggest that the
government wants to increase what it calls "flexibility and mobility"
of the workforce, especially in relation to absenteeism for health
reasons, moving workers around, even forcing workers to work while sick
or face disciplinary action, reducing sick leave, and so on. These
measures are already part of workers' daily lives but it seems that the
government is seeking to enshrine these attacks in collective
agreements.
Workers report that it is clear that the
government does not acknowledge nor does it care that public services
are at a breaking point and that workers are experiencing a crisis at
the workplace which is spilling into their lives outside of work and
which deeply affects the public services.
There is a world of difference between the
pay-the-rich schemes that are immediately put in place by various
governments -- including the provision of massive amounts of public
funds -- when private monopolies say they are in crisis, and the
government’s attitude towards the crisis in public services.
Public money is poured into the monopolies without investigation
because neo-liberal governments consider private monopolies as the
creators of society's wealth and that everything should be subordinated
to their demands. They do not recognize that it is the workers who
create society's wealth.
Public sector workers are considered a cost to be
reduced, which puts workers and those who receive public services at
great risk. Neo-liberal governments consider public services and public
sector workers an encumbrance to be eliminated through privatization.
This is unacceptable and must not pass.
It is no surprise then that workers are facing
more diversions, new tactics that the government is inventing to avoid
negotiating with them on the basis of their demands and the needs of
the services. One of these is a proposal by the government for
so-called discussion forums, outside of negotiations, to which not even
all the unions will be invited. The government has identified three
topics for the discussion forums: educational success; access to care
for people in long-term health care facilities or receiving home care;
and the overall health of public sector workers. It has indicated that
additional money for the workers may be available through the forums
and that the discussion will be centered on the working conditions of
the most vulnerable workers. What is going to be the process of
discussion and decision making? How will whatever comes out of these
forums be legally binding?
So far, the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), the
Quebec Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), and the Alliance of
the professional and technical health and social services staff (APTS)
have announced that they will not participate in these forums and are
demanding that these issues be dealt with through negotiations and on
the basis of workers' demands. The Centrale des syndicats du
Québec (CSQ) indicated that it considers the forums a way of
taking attention away from the real problems that are facing public
sectors workers and public services as a whole.
This issue of Workers' Forum
will begin to inform the readers about the demands of the public sector
workers.
Clearly, there is a need for public opinion to be
mobilized to fully support the public sector workers and to demand that
the government stop its dirty manipulations to negate the rights of
these workers and the critical need for drastic change to defend and
improve social programs and public services according to the needs of
modern Quebec.
This article was published in
Number 1 - January 15, 2020
Article Link:
Quebec Government Steps Up
Anti-Social Offensive: All Out to Support the Fight of Public Sector Workers for Their Rights and for Public Services the People Need
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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