BY JIM WHITTON
MONTREAL - Striking nurses in Quebec voted July 21 to
reject an agreement between the government and the
negotiators of their union, the Quebec Nurses Federation
(FIIQ), with three-quarters opposed to the deal. Even though
many were on holidays, 63 percent of the nurses participated
in the vote. Previously, the agreement had been approved by
62 percent of the 600 delegates of the union's highest body,
the federal council.
However, on July 24, the federal council voted to put an end to the nurses strike, which had lasted in most cases 23 days and was declared illegal by the government.
Most nurses opposed the agreement, which did not budge from the government's offer of a 5 percent wage increase over three years and proposed yet another study on reevaluating the wage scales of nurses with university degrees and others. Quebec nurses, who are among the lowest paid in Canada, were demanding an immediate raise of 10 percent, followed by an increase of 6 percent over two years.
Other items in the agreement were either already in the old contract and hadn't been applied, or were so qualified as to be useless. Many nurses pointed out, there was no back-to- work agreement. The government insists on trying to collect the millions of dollars of fines imposed on the union and the penalty of two days pay lost for every day on strike.
At a demonstration of 200 nurses in front of Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard's office in Montreal July 20, Dr. Raby Youla said, "The agreement does not respect our demands. They talk about studies but there have already been a lot of studies." Yourba is a doctor who works as a nurse because she became a doctor in Senegal and her competence is not recognized in Canada.
After the federal council approved the agreement, they proposed the nurses declare a truce until the vote on the agreement July 21. But at several hospitals nurses remained on the picket lines to express their opposition. Outside the federal council itself several nurses demonstrated their disagreement.
On the picket line in front of Notre Dame hospital in Montreal on July 22, Monique Lacroix, who has been a nurse for 28 years, pointed out, "It was unacceptable. We already had a letter of agreement in the old collective agreement on the creation of permanent positions. They will shorten the vacation period only if the employer is able. They must take out the ifs. We no longer have any confidence in that government." The period of time over which nurses can take their holidays, which was May to October, will now be May to September.
Sonia Pelletier, who also works at Notre Dame and is still considered temporary even though she has worked for two years full-time, said "I don't agree" with the decision of the federal council to end the strike. "Here we voted that they should come back to our local meeting and that is not what was done. What is disappointing is that our leaders have abandoned us because they were tired."
The strike began June 26 and was declared illegal by the Quebec government from the beginning under Law 160, which was adopted in the 1980s. On July 2 the National Assembly passed a second, more repressive law ordering the end of the strike.
In an interview published in July 10 La Presse, Bouchard declared, "If we give in, we are finished. Quebec will no longer be governable. But if we show that an illegal strike doesn't pay, there will not be many who will want to use it from now on." Referring to the negotiations under way with the other public sector workers, Bouchard added that if he gave in to the nurses, "That would correspond to breaking through the parameters, that would give very strong arguments to the 400,000 who are waiting."
Lacroix insisted, "We are fighting for wages but also for the quality of health care. They must hire more people." Last year nurses' overtime was the equivalent of over 800 full time jobs. About 43 percent of nurses work full-time, 28 percent are part-time, and 28 percent are on call. In 1995, following massive cuts in federal government funding to the provinces, the Quebec government closed nine hospitals in the Montreal region cutting 15 percent of all hospital beds.
Over and over on the picket lines nurses explained the overwork and stress they are subject too because there are not enough nurses. For Manon Lafrance, a nurse for 16 years at the Riviere-des-Prairies hospital in Montreal, "The agreement in principle changes nothing for the daily situation of nurses on the level of their tasks and workload. It puts in danger the survival of the nursing profession. There is nothing to attract youth."
The public health system in Quebec was established in the 1960s as part of the fight for equality by the Quebecois. Before the hospitals were private nonunion institutions controlled by the churches. Health care for the Quebecois, whose language is French, was much inferior to that for those who spoke English. Defending these gains is at the center of the present battle.
The nurses strike evoked massive sympathy in the population. There was constant honking and other gestures to show support of the nurses picket lines. In trying to turn working people against the nurses, Alain Dubuc, the chief editorialist of La Presse, entitled an editorial "Honk now, pay later!" Several patients joined the nurses picket lines.
Aside from declarations, however, the officials of the three major union federations in Quebec, as well as those in the rest of Canada, did nothing to mobilize this support behind the nurses.
While the nurses strike is over, there is no agreement between the union and the government. Nurses union officials announced they will seek mediation. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of other public sector workers, including many hospital workers, are negotiating for a new contract.