Quebec Workers Experienced a “Counter Revolution” Under Jean Boulet: Experts

The striking daycare workers were tired and broke by the time winter arrived, worn down from standing on the frozen picket lines while their bosses refused to negotiate.

Then, just three days before Christmas, the educators at CPE Le Jardin Robi found out their bosses wanted to force them back to work using a controversial new labour law. They had been on strike since October of last year, fighting to keep their paid 30-minute lunch break.

The workers had offered to cut their break down to 25 minutes, even 20, but they insisted on having some moment of respite in their otherwise chaotic day. After all, working conditions in Quebec’s subsidized childcare system are so bad that half of new employees leave the profession within their first two years.

But the bosses didn’t budge. 

Instead, they waited until the moment Bill 14 came into effect on Dec. 1 to break the strike. The law, adopted by former labour minister Jean Boulet, gives the Quebec government the power to widen the definition of “essential worker” so it can end the strike and impose binding arbitration.

“We were wondering why the bosses wouldn’t negotiate. We were wondering why they wouldn’t even hear us out,” said Nathalie Duperré, the president of the daycare workers’ union. “When they finally asked the government to step in, we realized why. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces fit together.

“It was a slap in the face. To refuse to negotiate with us and then, three days before Christmas, to try to force our members back to work. These women didn’t take the decision to go on strike lightly.”

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By invoking the law, they were able to force the educators to provide three days of service a week, essentially negating the effects of the strike. Now, nearly nine months into a labour dispute that’s seen these workers rely on donations from fellow union members to get by, three of the women have quit, and more may follow.

When Boulet announced last week that he would be leaving politics, the tributes poured in. His departure from the Coalition Avenir Québec would be a “gut punch” to the party, said Quebec City radio pundit Jonathan Trudeau. 

Former Liberal MNA Christine St-Pierre praised Boulet’s tact, good manners and said the minister was well-liked across the aisle, during an appearance on Radio-Canada. Even his erstwhile critics, like Québec solidaire’s Alexandre Leduc, praised the minister’s “openness” to hearing the other side.

But for the workers of Quebec, Boulet’s legacy is an all-out assault on their right to organize. The Confédération des syndicats nationaux — a union representing over a quarter of a million workers in Quebec — are contesting the minister’s signature piece of legislation on the basis that it infringes on their Charter right to strike.

“This law goes farther than any piece of labour legislation put forward by any other provincial government,” said Mostafa Henaway, a community organizer who teaches at Concordia University. “When you chip away at public sector unions, as this law does, you’re lowering the floor for all workers. Because this narrows what public sector unions can do to advocate for all workers. It creates less competition for employers.

“This is Jean Boulet’s legacy as labour minister, it’s a counter-revolution to all of the gains made by Quebec’s workers during the 1960s onward.”

The Labour Ministry refused The Rover’s interview request, making neither Boulet nor any representative of the government available to answer questions over the phone.

Beyond provisions in Bill 14, Henaway says that Boulet’s tenure at the labour ministry will be remembered by the government’s inaction in the face of “corporate greed.” Companies like Olymel closing its slaughterhouse during negotiations with its unionized workers in Beauce in 2023, costing 994 jobs in a region whose economy is struggling. 

“Olymel was still profitable, they had just received government subsidies to modernize the plant,” Henaway said. “And then, after the cheque clears, they turn around and put 1,000 people out of work during a labour dispute.

“Olymel, in a place like (Beauce), it employs 1,000 people, it works with local farmers, it was the engine of that economy. You are taking away everyone’s livelihood for profit. 

“You have these people in a meat processing plant who have been doing heavy repetitive work for years. Their bodies are beat up. Where are they going to get work next? Who will hire them when they’re old, and their bodies are degraded?”

Henaway argues that Boulet, who was an employer’s lawyer before joining the CAQ, has been openly hostile to struggling workers. When Amazon laid off 1,700 Quebec employees for unionizing last year, Henaway and some of the workers sought an audience at the National Assembly.

“(Boulet) wouldn’t talk to us because he thought we were a security threat,” Henaway said. “We went in May of last year because workers were still unemployed, still without any new job training from the government. We were invited by Québec solidaire to sit in on a committee meeting, and we were kicked out.

“A Sûreté du Québec officer came to see us. We had the right to be there, our names were on the list, we were literally just sitting down. We weren’t allowed in because Boulet said we were a security threat. We’re talking about thousands of workers out of a job, without the healthcare benefits of those jobs, in the middle of a trade war, and he can’t even sit in the same room as us.”

Félix Trudeau is an organizer with Alliance Ouvrière, a group whose members are under criminal investigation for staging a mock execution of a papier-maché figure resembling the minister during a May Day protest this year. He says the symbolic violence of his group pales in comparison to the growing number of worker deaths in Quebec.

Last year, some 257 Quebecers died in workplace accidents or from work-related illnesses, more than any other province in Canada. It was the second year in a row that Quebec’s workplace deaths eclipsed Ontario’s. This is despite Ontario’s population being roughly twice Quebec’s.

“These deaths are preventable,” said Trudeau. “That’s real violence. Those are real lives lost because our province prioritizes profit margins above all else. … Did we do a shocking stunt that hurt feelings? Yes. It should hurt feelings. But do we really wish harm to the minister? Of course not.”

Trudeau says Boulet’s legacy will be one of inaction in the face of growing corporate influence over our politics.

“What worries me is that the big corporations are consolidating, they’re getting bigger, richer, more powerful, and they have a lot more influence in our governments,” Trudeau said. “That isn’t being matched by organized labour. We’re getting weaker. They’re getting stronger. Workers are losing, and this government is siding with the big companies.”

As for the workers at CPE Jardin Robi, their future may wind up in the hands of an arbitrator, whose decision on lunch breaks and other working conditions will be binding. Duperré, who represents the educators, says Boulet’s legislation has taken away what little leverage the workers had.

“This is one of the trades with the lowest pay,” she said. “These women aren’t trying to get rich, they’re caring for our children because it’s their vocation. It’s their calling. But they’ve seen their conditions deteriorate to the point where they aren’t being replaced by newer and younger workers.

“There used to be three cohorts of students at our local college, in Jonquière, graduating every year. Now we’re struggling to get one cohort. Because no one wants to work somewhere where you can’t take a break, and the government lets your boss chip away at your rights. It isn’t right, it’s cheating our families and our children.

“For the women who had to quit their jobs, they had formed a meaningful bond with those kids. Now they’re gone.”

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