Charest government can be defeated

Between the end of November and the middle of December, we saw one of the largest demonstrations ever in Québec city as well as the most radical series of actions by unions in Québec since the 1970’s.

On December 11, while groups of workers blocked all the main roads leading to Québec’s "resource regions" as well as the four largest ports, 40,000 people demonstrated in Montréal in defense of affordable, public, unionized daycare.

The Liberals anti-union laws and counter reforms have been passed by the National Assembly. There is an important debate taking place on which way forward for the movement.

In that debate, the leadership of union confederations and large coalitions of community groups has clearly taken a stand in favor of a largely symbolic mobilization.

They will write lots of briefs. They will organize a few demonstrations to take place sometime in February, as well as for the anniversary of Charest’s victory on April 14 and on May Day.

Nowhere in the plan of action, adopted by the Réseau de Vigilance on January 13, is there any mention of a possible general strike, not even for an hour.

This plan of action signifies the abandonment of any perspective for a decisive struggle against the government, and their reliance on elections.

They obviously look for the establishment of a "conflictual collaboration" (concertation conflictuelle, the official ideology of the union movement since the early 1980’s) routine with the liberals, and the return of the PQ to power in 2008, as the best possible outcomes.

They will try to blame this step back on their membership’s demobilization after the intensity of December and the passing of the laws. They will also argue that public opinion would go against them if they led a general strike.

But it is very easy to argue that things are going the other way.

These leaders are the ones demobilizing, while a large section of their base is ready to fight, and the vast majority of the population is so against Charest that a strike is likely to enjoy very wide support.

On the issue of public opinion, Charest’s lack of popularity, after only nine months in office, is mind boggling.

A poll conducted in the week of January 7-12 reveals that only 5.5% of Quebecers are "very satisfied" with his government. Only 20.3% are satisfied, for a total satisfaction rate of 25.8%.

On the other side, 30.1% are not very satisfied and a staggering 39% not satisfied at all, for a total of unhappy citizens at almost 70%!

If an election had taken place during that week, the Liberals would have scored THIRD, behind the PQ and ADQ. If the 40% of really unhappy people participate in the movement and another 30% are sympathetic to it, this government can be demoralized, divided and forced to abandon the worse aspects of its program.

The main problem is now that of leadership.

If the executives of all major unions, as well as the Women’s Federation (FFQ), student unions and most anti-poverty groups agree to slow the movement down and lower expectations, it will be very hard to translate the potential for a decisive struggle into reality.

But there are significant assets on our side.

Early in December it was revealed that at least 125 locals affiliated with the Québec Federation of Labour (FTQ) were asking for a general strike to happen before the passing of the anti-union bills.

That movement was the strongest among locals in the Health sector, but not only there.

More recently, at the Montréal Central Council meeting of CSN, many delegates were calling for a general strike for the near future. Even the Teachers Union (CSQ) has been playing with the idea as part of the negotiations of public sector collective agreements now taking place.

Also, in these negotiations, the government is unlikely to make any significant concessions without mass mobilization, and at some point, even the most conservative bureaucrats need to justify their existence by winning something, especially in a favorable political context.

Another precious asset we have is the creation of l’Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP) in the aftermath of the Summit of the Americas mobilization of 2001.

The new pluralist party of the Québec left has 1500 members and is growing.

These members are, for the most part, activists involved in all the movements represented at the Réseau de Vigilance (from which political parties are explicitly excluded).

If these hundreds of activists take a clear stand in favour of an escalation of the campaign leading to a general strike, as the Outaouais region of UFP already did, a network could be formed, at the base, to push the struggle forward and provide a different kind of leadership.

Building this network is what we need to do right now if we don’t want the momentum to be completely killed by the unwillingness of high-ranking bureaucrats to go beyond their populist rhetoric and truly confront this arrogant and highly unpopular government.