Last Wednesday, transit maintenance workers at Société de transport de Montréal (STM) suspended their job action as the threat of strikebreaking legislation loomed.
About 2,400 members of Syndicat du transport de Montréal had been on strike since October 31 demanding higher wages and protections against subcontracting. This was the third time since June the union had been off the job. In an escalating series of actions, workers walked out for nine days in June and then for two weeks in late September.
But with the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government attempting to fast-track impending legislation to force members back to work, the union opted to pre-emptively cease its most recent job action.
This was yet another example of government interference eroding free collective bargaining by curtailing the right to strike.
Though union president Bruno Jeannotte indicated that the fight was not over, the Quebec government’s intention to end the strike legislatively clearly undermined the union’s leverage.
After a dozen days, the maintenance workers’ strike had limited bus and subway service to peak hours and late evenings. The union had planned to continue the strike until the end of the month in the face of what it described as an “inflexible” employer.
The strike took place under the shadow of Bill 89, designed to limit the right to strike by expanding essential services designations and granting Quebec’s minister of labour wide latitude to impose binding arbitration. First tabled in February, the bill became Law 14 when it received assent in May.
The law introduces public “well-being” as a criteria for designating essential services and limiting workers’ right to strike. Going well beyond current essential services stipulations meant to protect public safety and health from the consequences of work stoppages, the law allows the minister to end strikes across large portions of the provincial economy, including in the private sector.
As Barry Eidlin, associate professor of sociology at McGill University, told Class Struggle, “this law has been the spectre haunting negotiations between the union and STM.”
In Eidlin’s opinion, the employer had little reason to meaningfully bargain with workers, knowing that in short order the government would intervene to end the strike and bail them out. “This employer was banking on the strike creating enough of a crisis to justify government intervention,” Eidlin said.
The union’s president echoed this sentiment, indicating that the impending law meant that the STM “no longer had any incentive to negotiate with us.” As in so many examples over the past several years, government interference on the side of the employer undermined collective bargaining and shielded STM from the pressure of the union’s strike.
Yet Quebec’s labour minister, Jean Boulet, was unwilling to wait until the end of the month and instead chose to table legislation to fast-track Law 14.
As it stands, the law remains scheduled to come into force on November 30. Yet despite transit workers ending their strike prematurely, the minister is nevertheless proceeding with his plan to table the measure to fast-track the law’s implementation. Without the support of all opposition political parties, however, this may prove impossible.
The Montreal transit system has been the site of significant labour unrest of late. After staging a one-day strike on November 1, 4,500 bus drivers and subway operators again threatened job action this past weekend.
Prior to announcing the planned strike action, hearings were held at the Administrative Labour Tribunal (TAT, in French), Quebec’s labour board, to determine the essential service implications of the strike. In allowing the planned work stoppage to proceed, the TAT wrote that another transit service interruption did not pose “a danger to public health or safety.”
With the strike set to proceed, the employer and union reached a last-minute deal, averting a further labour disruption. This is precisely how collective bargaining is supposed to work. The credible threat of a bus and subway operator strike pressured the boss to settle.
Such labour board rulings are about to become far less likely, however. Were Law 14 already in force, the TAT would have been compelled to operate within the legislation’s much broader definition of essential services. And if the Canada Industrial Relations Board’s recent ruling related to the federal government’s use of section 107 against postal workers is any indication, the Quebec labour board is unlikely to resist a ministerial order to end a strike and impose arbitration.
Boulet in fact used the TAT’s decision to allow the transit operator strike to proceed as further evidence of the need for greater governmental power. “This decision clearly demonstrates the legitimacy of Bill 14. In fact, this law aims to give greater consideration to the needs of the population in the event of a strike,” the minister said last week.
The government has repeatedly invoked the need to protect “vulnerable” populations from the harms of strikes and service disruptions. This rationale was rejected when applied to the Toronto Transit Commission.
In 2023, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that legislation revoking Toronto transit workers’ right to strike was unconstitutional and that supposed harms or inconveniences to particular populations was not a sufficient reason to limit the right to strike.
According to Eidlin, media preoccupation with the inconvenience caused to transit riders by the strike has obscured other important issues. Provincial austerity and creeping privatization are putting considerable strain on Montreal’s transit system, but the CAQ government has refused to make the necessary funding allocations to both pay workers fairly and protect service quality.
“It would be nice if CAQ devoted as much energy to funding transit as they do to passing laws ordering striking workers back to the job,” Eidlin said.
Thus far, however, there hasn’t been a strong connection made between maintenance workers’ fight against subcontracting and privatization on the one hand, and public service quality on the other hand.
As Eidlin indicated to Class Struggle, this may have limited the amount of public support for the strike. He contrasted this dispute with strikes by public sector unions in the Common Front in late 2023 and early 2024. In that instance, teachers, health-care workers and other union members built alliances with the public by connecting working conditions and service quality. “The transit riding public hasn’t made the same connection in this case,” Eidlin said.
For now it appears that government overreach has once again limited workers’ right to strike and engage in free collective bargaining.
Law 14 may not be long for this world, however. A coalition of unions based at McGill University has launched a court challenge against the law, arguing it violates workers’ Charter rights.
Eidlin said it’s no coincidence that McGill professors are leading the charge against the CAQ government’s effort to hamstring unions in the province.
Until recently, McGill faculty were some of the only remaining non-union professors. A contentious organizing drive led by law professors took strike action to secure recognition from the university.
As Eidlin relayed, had the Quebec government had the power then that it stands to gain with Law 14, it’s very likely that faculty would not have won their union. It took a strike to force McGill to finally recognize the union and negotiate.
“We therefore thought it was important to mount a pre-emptive challenge to the law because on its face it violates the Charter,” Eidlin said.
Unions in Quebec will have to wait for the court’s final say on the constitutionality of Law 14. As with most instances of government repression, however, protecting workers’ rights will require mounting opposition in the streets and in workplaces, as well as in the courts.
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