Demonstration Targets Real Disruptors of Social Life
Nearly a quarter of the 420,000 public sector workers, from all regions of Quebec, converged on Montreal on Saturday, September 23. Common Front unions estimate that more than 100,000 people responded to its call to make themselves heard as one voice to demand humane working conditions as an integral part of turning the tide and creating a public network that defends the rights and dignity of everyone.
A striking aspect of the demonstration was the number of young people, the next generation, expressing their enthusiasm for viable public networks of health care and education. For many, this was the first time they participated in an action of its kind. The fact of being together like this with all the energy that emanates from it was a great encouragement for the battles that are on the horizon, at a time strike votes have already begun and will continue in the weeks to come. Union spokespersons report that in the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, for example, the vote in favour of a strike is close to 100 per cent!
The day's host, comedian Rosalie Vaillancourt, welcomed people as they arrived at the Quartier des spectacles and reflected the atmosphere and the issues very well. She expressed her personal appreciation for the work of health and education workers, while affirming that all public sector workers are the pillars of society and that the current struggle is for the future of the public sector and society itself. She said what was needed were services that meet the needs of people as they exist today.
Treasury Board President Sonia Lebel has shown herself and her government to be totally insensitive to the fact that the driving forces of society had come together, sometimes traveling long distances, to say loud and clear that improvements are necessary both in terms of salaries and their working conditions for the good of public services. The Common Front unions argue that Lebel and her government have a "disconnected and contemptuous" manner, insensitive to the untenable conditions of workers and the deterioration of public systems. Lebel raised once again that she expected "flexibility," the possibility of organizing work in schools and hospitals "in a more efficient manner," adding that no one wants services to be "disrupted."
On this subject, the unions raise the examples of more "flexibility" and "efficiency" in the service of private interests on the part of the CAQ government. A few days prior to the demonstration, a request for action was filed at the Montreal courthouse regarding the COVID-19 outbreaks which occurred in Quebec's residential and long-term care centres (CHSLDs) in the spring of 2020. The action initially raised only the case of residents of the CHSLD Sainte-Dorothée, but has since been expanded and now concerns all patients in public CHSLDs in Quebec who experienced outbreaks during the pandemic, involving 25 establishments.
The lawsuit is based on the right of CHSLD residents to receive adequate health care and social services at levels determined on a scientific basis, with continuity and in a personalized and safe manner, that upholds their right to life; the safety, integrity and freedom of their person; and their dignity.
In their class action request, the plaintiffs argue that during the period from March 2020 to March 2021, CHSLD residents were treated in a wrongful, negligent and unsafe manner by the defendants as part of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the evidence in this regard, the plaintiffs raise the failure of the defendants to adopt or update a regional plan to combat an influenza pandemic between 2006 and 2020, the defendants' omission of measures to prepare CHSLDs under their responsibility for the pandemic in January and February 2020, and the failure to put in place in a timely manner the necessary measures to protect CHSLD residents when they were identified in January 2020 as part of the most vulnerable population.
The request for collective action also targets the Minister of Health and the National Director of Public Health.
This article was published in
Number 53 - September
25, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10532.HTM
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