BY MICHEL DUGRÉ
MONTREAL - Working people have organized widespread
protests almost every day throughout Quebec since the May 11
Parti Quebecois (PQ) government decision to close nine
hospitals in Montreal, eliminating 15 percent of all
hospital beds in the region. Close to 10,000 workers would
be directly hit by this measure, including several thousand
who would lose their jobs. The government's explicit goal is
to drastically cut the health-care budget; it has no plan to
transfer services to other facilities.
The biggest action took place June 7 in Loretteville, near Quebec City, where more than 15,000 people protested. On June 12, close to 2,500 hospital workers and supporters dem-onstrated in Montreal during government hearings on the proposed cuts.
"They might be short of money, but you don't cut the quality of health care," said Jacqueline St-Urbain, who is 65. "People are concerned. How can they pretend they will maintain the quality of services with fewer hospitals, when emergency rooms are already overcrowded?"
The government's decision is bringing French- and English-speaking hospital workers together against divisions imposed by the 150-year-old system in Quebec of two separate health systems based on language, with the English system offering traditionally much better services than its French counterpart. Eighty percent of the population in Quebec speaks French and constitutes an oppressed nationality.
Placards and slogans at the Montreal demonstration were in French and English. Arthur Sandborn, president of the Montreal Labor Council of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), said, "in order to win we will have to overcome our divisions between those who speak French and those who speak English." He gave his speech in both languages.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, hospital workers waged big struggles to improve their working and living conditions, organize unions, and push back the arbitrariness of private hospital owners. They overcame the enormous wage gap between men and women, forced the government to nationalize and secularize the health system, and won the establishment of a public health insurance service.
"It is not the doctors, nor the hospital administrators, nor the Quebec government but the working class who made these gains in the 1960s," said Michel Chartrand, a labor leader during that time, who was the main speaker at the demonstration.
"We can't wage this fight locally," wrote Alain Hébert from the St-Charles-Boromée hospital in a union leaflet building the demonstration. "This can only be done nationally through gaining massive support in the population. Otherwise we'll end up with two health systems: one private, for the rich; the other public and in ruins, for the poor."
The Coalition for the Defense of Social and Health Services in Montreal-which includes union federations and other organizations - has called another demonstration for June 21.
The fact that a government pretending to defend the rights of the Quebecois is currently leading the attacks on gains made in the fight against national oppression has opened a discussion in the labor movement and among those who oppose hospital closings on the coming referendum on a "sovereign" Quebec that the PQ government is preparing for the fall.
On May 19, the Federation of Social Affairs (FAS), CSN's biggest federation, "decided to take public its position against the sovereigntist project of the Parti Quebecois as long as its current social policies-are not changed." On June 8, in reaction to this decision, the CSN Confederal Council - the federation's highest body between conventions - voted to reaffirm its support for Quebec's sovereignty.
"I am for Quebec independence, but with bread and butter," said Gérard Pierre, who was born in Haiti, reflecting a popular view.
Not all participants in the mobilization share this idea. Many, especially among those who speak English, are opposed to any idea of Quebec "sovereignty." "I don't think the Liberals would do any better," said a nurse at the Reddy Memorial hospital. "But I totally disagree with union federations using our money to promote Quebec independence."