BY JOANNE WALLADOR
MONTREAL - Some 47,500 nurses across Quebec, members of the
Quebec Federation of Nurses (FIIQ) have been on strike since
June 26. They are defying Law 160, passed in the 1980s, which
denies them the right to strike. This law has provisions for
hefty fines and the loss of two days of wages per day of
strike.
The nurses can also lose a year of seniority for each day on strike, a provision the government has not yet put in motion. The government was ultimately forced to restore the lost seniority.
The nurses' strike symbol is a lemon with all of the juice squeezed out of it, to signify that they cannot make any more concessions. Nancy Coté at Notre Dame Hospital said that with all the cutbacks they have so much work, "You feel like exploding, you don't even have time to get a drink of water."
On July 2 the government passed a special law ordering the nurses back to work, which imposed more fines and provisions that attack time off for union affairs. In arguing for adoption of the law, Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard said, "disorder and illegal strikes are contagious."
As the parliament was debating this law, thousands of nurses demonstrated outside the Parliament Buildings in Québec City and elsewhere to show their determination to defy this law.
The Parti Quebecois government claims the strike is only about money, arguing all other issues have been settled. It is trying to undermine the widespread popularity of the strike by saying it can't cut income taxes if it gives in to the nurses' wage demands, and that it will not give more than 5 percent over three years.
The nurses' fact sheet explains that all questions have not been settled, and that wage demands of 15 percent over three years are justified. Entry level nurses in Quebec are the lowest paid in Canada, earning Can$30,340 (US$44,660) a year. Top-level nurses in Quebec earn Can$23.30 an hour, $5 less than nurses in Ontario.
In the wake of major cuts in health care and hospital closures, the nurses are demanding their work load be reduced and more full time, permanent posts be created. The government has already agreed to convert nurses' overtime hours into new jobs every two years. It is estimated that 1,000 posts would be created by this measure alone.
Every day the daily newspapers report how many operations have supposedly been postponed because of the strike and interview a patient who the strike is inconveniencing. But whole departments have remained on duty to provide essential services, such as emergency and intensive care. In their fact sheet, the nurses' union explain it is the cuts in health-care budgets and hospital closures imposed by the Parti Quebecois government that is responsible for the long lists of patients waiting for surgery and treatment. The Order of Quebec Nurses points out the nurses are acting to improve the health system. On many picket lines patients in wheelchairs can be seen supporting the nurses.
The nurses' determination is stiffened by the fact that they went back to work after a special law in 1989. "We made a concession in 1989 and we got nothing. It was an error," said Jean Francois Bissonette, a nurse at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.
The FIIQ has received support from the Montreal municipal workers, whose leaders went to jail for union activity; Bell telephone operators recently on strike to defend their jobs; the Quebec Women's Federation; the Teachers Alliance of Montreal; and Nurses Associations in Alberta, Ontario, and Newfoundland. The three major union federations in Québec have denounced the special law.
Meanwhile, nurses in Saskatchewan who defied a back-to-work law for 10 days in April won a 13.5 percent wage increase over three years. This was not as much as they were demanding, but higher than the 7 percent the government there was offering.
Bissonette explained the government "is using us to set an example." He was referring to the 400,000 other public sector workers who's contracts will be negotiated in the fall.
The 2,900 ambulance drivers organized by the Confederation of National Trade Unions has voted to go out on strike as of July 14. Nine hundred pharmacists working in hospitals and other health care centers have submitted their resignations to support their demand for a 17 percent wage increase.