Despite the difficulties the strikes caused citizens, “popular support has been constant,” said Caroline Senneville, president of the CSN.
Posted at 5:33 p.m
“People came to bring us coffee. In Abitibi, an SME even supplied us with a large outdoor fireplace.” It is this support from the population that impressed Caroline Senneville most during the last negotiations.
In recent years, unions have been less visible. The recent struggle has actually “brought the trade union movement back to the fore, and in a positive way,” Ms. Senneville noted in an interview with La Presse.
“People knew what we were fighting for. We fought for public services. »
And this time, in his opinion, the government failed to convince the population that “what was given to the public purse was taken away from other people.”
Nevertheless, the strikes were felt hard. Schools were closed, operations and treatments canceled. How can you avoid it next time? “It will be necessary for the government not to take public services for granted and not to take those who provide them for granted. It's still like we have a memory list three feet long. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Common Front demonstration, September 23, 2023
Unlike other union members, CSN members had access to a strike fund (the professional defense fund, made up of regular contributions from members).
But as for the other strikers, the next salary increases will not be adjusted depending on where they live, even if the cost of living varies enormously from region to region. Such differentiation “was not part of our wishes this time,” but perhaps next time, suggests Ms. Senneville, saying she is aware that the housing crisis is changing the situation greatly.
CSN members will vote in principle on the agreement by February 20th. Ms Senneville says that it is up to each general assembly to decide confidently, but that the draft regulations submitted to union boards and associations have so far been positively received.
The next battles
The CSN vows to fight next year against the centralization it fears after the passage of important bills in the health and education sectors.
“Our members have more than doubts about these reforms,” notes Ms. Senneville.
She adds: “The Minister of Health [Christian Dubé] said that he was giving himself time to implement structures and that his bill could be improved. We’ll take him at his word, we want to see what corners can be rounded off.”
According to Radio-Canada, the manager hired to lead the new agency in Santé Québec will receive a salary of $543,000 in addition to performance incentives.
“Many people who work very hard in public administration and who care about the state don’t deserve this,” Ms. Senneville notes in passing.
In general, she is concerned about the increasing reliance on the private sector and the importation of practices that take place there, but at the same time she regrets the bureaucracy that forces workers to fill out more and more forms, with the result that “they feel worse”. about the impact of their work.”
Ms. Senneville mentions here a column in La Presse that highlighted the difficulty for patients with CHSLDs even getting enough fluids. She also recalls the case of this nurse who was suspended for three days during her shift for eating toast.
And then, she notes, a complaint has to be heard, with great effort and very long delays.
Don't the unions also have something to do with this bureaucracy?
“The number of minutes we spend with a patient is not agreed,” answers Ms. Senneville, emphasizing that it is the administration that decides.
The President of the CSN concludes that “negotiations should be the time to solve such problems” that are causing the system to run amok. “But for several months we were told [par le gouvernement] : “It’s not a priority, we don’t want to talk about it.” »