[news] Unions resist labor agenda of premier in Quebec

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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 16:01:16 -0800
From: shniad at sfu.ca

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/americas/17CANA.html

New York Times	   December 17, 2003

Unions resist labor agenda of premier in Quebec

By Clifford Krauss

Quebec — Quebec's powerful labor unions have moved to counter Premier Jean
Charest's agenda of budget cutting, privatization and limits on labor's
collective bargaining power with accelerated disruptions of services and
noisy marches across the province.

Union members have pelted government buildings with eggs and have held
almost daily rallies in front of Mr. Charest's Montreal office and in front
of the provincial legislative building in Quebec City despite blustery
weather.

The 500,000-member Quebec Federation of Labor is threatening a general
strike if Mr. Charest does not retreat from a sweeping legislative
initiative to rewrite the provincial labor code to allow hospitals and other
government agencies to employ more contract workers who are not union
members. The new laws would also raise fees for public day care services to
cut budget deficits and limit union collective bargaining in private nursing
homes.

On Thursday, tens of thousands of workers blocked major highways around the
province, disrupted public transit in Montreal and Quebec City during the
morning rush hour and closed down hundreds of day care centers, forcing many
working parents to stay home. Several hospitals were forced to postpone
elective surgery because of the disruptions.

"I've never seen such disgusting garbage in 40 years," Henri Masse, leader
of the Quebec Federation of Labor, told demonstrators in Quebec City on
Monday, referring to the government's method of changing the labor laws.

Mr. Charest defied the threats on Monday by moving to use his legislative
majority to limit debate on eight bills that the unions have opposed, and
then moved to steamroll them into law by Wednesday or Thursday.

"The government has no intention of yielding to intimidation or blackmail,"
Mr. Charest told reporters. "Insults, intimidation and vandalism are always
a disgrace to democracy."

Mr. Charest's Liberals won a landslide victory against the separatist Parti
Québécois last April by promising to cut taxes, government bureaucracy and
welfare rolls. But many voters chose the Liberals over the separatists
because of a general fatigue over the decades-old debate over whether Quebec
should remain part of Canada, making his mandate somewhat ambiguous on
economic policy.

How Mr. Charest withstands the labor offensive may help define how far he
can go with his agenda. It may also help determine whether the Parti
Québécois can make a comeback in provincial elections to be held in three
years or so to push ahead with their plans for a third separatist
referendum.

So far, however, the separatist party has not been able to regain its
footing. Its federal partner, the Bloc Québécois, is expected to lose many
seats to the federal Liberal Party in federal elections expected next
spring. Missteps by Mr. Charest, however, could hurt Prime Minister Paul
Martin's efforts to win a landslide Liberal victory.

With the separatists weaker than they have been in decades, unions
representing 1.2 million workers have at least temporarily become the most
important leftist force in a province that has long been Canada's most
social democratic one. Prolonged labor unrest in Quebec could slow the
Canadian economy because the province is an important center for
manufacturing and tourism.

Mr. Charest has broken with a 30-year custom of government under which
officials sat down with the unions to negotiate before making policy. But he
did follow a long tradition in Quebec politics by proposing controversial
policies in December, when demonstrators find it uncomfortably cold to march
and the public is more interested in Christmas shopping than politics.

"It's an important moment but a moment Mr. Charest would like to go
unnoticed," said Pierre Martin, a political scientist at the University of
Montreal.