Quebec

The workers in the Quebec public sector have done well to turn down the government’s offers of a wage increase which does not even keep up with inflation. Such an offer is laughable in consideration of the sheer numbers presented by these unions in the November strikes. In the upcoming days, workers should not hesitate to extend the strike as long as necessary. The workers of the Front Commun and all public sector unions should join with the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE) in a united, unlimited general strike, which, at nearly 600,000 workers strong, would be among the largest in history. The brilliant show of strength by public sector workers in Quebec, of the past weeks and the coming days, proves the immense power the working class can wield by following the path of class unionism. All the workers involved in the strike, standing together against the bourgeoisie – not only as teachers, or healthcare workers, or educational support staff, or social workers, etc., but as the entire united public sector – are pointing the way forward for the united struggle of the whole working class!

The bourgeoisie insists, as always, that it’s offering a “fair deal”, that the workers’ demands are unrealistic. Quebec’s government has declared that these demands are too broad, that it’s absurd for the workers to expect, all at once, improvements in pay, working conditions, staffing, pensions, parental rights and so on. But the size of these strikes, and the existence of similar struggles all over the world, prove that the only thing unrealistic about the situation is the demand of the ruling class, namely, that the working class should continue to tolerate giving its entire life over to capital.

Workers across Canada are facing similar attacks. Right now, in New Brunswick, the provincial government is trying to strip away the pension plan it agreed on following CUPE’s 2021 strike. Across the country, healthcare and education budgets are being slashed, overburdening public workers everywhere. The bosses and the reformist leaders of the trade unions do not underestimate the strength of the entire working class when struggling together. Canadian public sector workers must push for the expansion of their struggle into other industries and categories. The only way out is for workers to link these struggles together and to organize into one class union.

 

New Brunswick

The New Brunswick provincial government is attacking the pension plans of the workers of CUPE local 1253 (approximately 2800 school district workers, including bus drivers and custodians) and Local 2745 (approximately 4400 educational support staff), plans which were established by the agreements that ended the strike of 22,000 CUPE workers in New Brunswick in 2021. Local 1253 was the last to ratify the agreement due to the lack of clarity on the issue; only in March 2022 was an agreement finalised. Now the government wants to squeeze the workers more. This time, as the union leaders have acknowledged, it will be impossible to keep the workers from fighting back!

The fact that there is an agreement in place, according to the government, doesn’t stop it from attempting to finish what it started in 2021: to claw away pensions from bus drivers, custodians, educational support staff, and nursing home workers; but they will certainly use the existence of the agreement as a reason to declare any defence mounted by the workers to be illegal. The government has clearly shown that the laws which restrict the class struggle on the side of the workers don’t apply to the ruling class. Further evidence that the law is only a weapon of the bosses is the fact that the pension funds of the provincial court judges have been completely untouched by the bill, despite costing the province several orders of magnitude more: for a judge of 10 years, nearly a hundred thousand annually, for life; for 20 years on the bench, twice that amount, for a profession which already earns $300,000 annually while working. But apparently these resources can’t be spared for the workers who contribute to the bringing up of new generations and the care of the old, i.e., the social reproduction of the class.

Workers must recognize that, despite the protests of the bourgeoisie, despite the assertion that collective agreements are sacred and inviolable, they are in fact nothing but truces between the two classes, locked in a war—one that will not end until classes cease to exist! The provincial government has broken this truce, and the workers must act by striking. The entire union must show solidarity; if the government wants to rehash the events of 2021, if it isn’t satisfied with the established agreements and is ready to throw the old truce out, CUPE workers should indulge them, and show them what the past two years of growing struggles have taught the working class!

The bosses and the State will use the threat of illegality to subdue worker miltancy. Their goal is twofold: on the one hand, declaring a strike action illegal garners fear of action, and, on the other, the State is able to direct struggles into channels more desirable to capital. They want nothing more than to see us fail. It will be for the workers to decide where it ends, not the collaborationist leaders who, like last time, sent the workers back to work at the earliest opportunity.

The hundreds of thousands of workers now striking in Quebec, and only months ago in Ontario, are struggling against the same attacks by their bosses in government. It is time for the working class to unite its counter efforts, and go on the offensive – not only in these provinces, but across Canada and North America – all the way to the destruction of the whole rotten system!