Two weeks ago, Quebec Minister of Higher Education Pierre Duchesne proposed that the government grant student associations the legal right to strike.
Last spring, many student associations across Quebec voted to go on strike to oppose the former Liberal government’s proposed tuition increases. The Liberal government did not recognize these strikes as legal. Instead, it called the actions “boycotts,” which prompted the Quebec Superior Court to interpret student strikes as such.
The courts implemented over 20 injunctions against students who formed picket lines, as well as schools that cancelled classes. These injunctions mandated students to return to class, even if they were members of an association that had voted to go on strike. Not all of the court’s orders were respected, however. For instance, Cégep de L’Outaouais cancelled its classes in May despite court orders.
Duchesne has stated that the government’s insistence on referring to the events of last spring as “boycotts” only aggravated the situation, and disparaged some of the actions of the Charest government.
“The consequence was an important social crisis with long-lasting instability,” Duchesne told La Presse in French.
Duchesne has said that giving student associations the legal right to strike will create more stability in the province in the event of student protests against government actions such as tuition hikes. According to La Presse, Duchesne’s proposal will be discussed at the upcoming Quebec summit on higher education, which is scheduled to take place in February 2013.
Jérémie Bédard-Wien, spokesperson for L’Association pour une solidarité syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), said the association is concerned about the consequences of the government legislating student strikes in the same way as labour union strikes.
According to Bédard-Wien, labour unions only have the right to strike when it is time to negotiate a collective agreement. They cannot legally strike for political reasons.
“If the legislation [that Duchesne is proposing] is similar to the legislation of the right to strike for workers, then we would most presumably lose the right to strike in certain situations—for instance, political reasons,” he said. “This would really limit our reach.”
Bédard-Wien said that students would continue to strike for political reasons, regardless of any future laws that could legally limit this ability.
“Student strikes are legal right now,” he said. “They are legal because nothing makes them illegal …. Students enforce strikes because they believe in the power of collective decision-making and general assemblies. They don’t enforce strikes because it is legal or illegal.”
He also expressed concern about the law’s effect on the autonomy of student associations. The proposed law would require a student strike vote to be like that of a labour union, meaning it would have to occur by secret ballot and would need to pass by a majority vote.
“What’s important to notice is that such legislation would really infringe on the ability for student associations to govern themselves,” he said. “Students have the right … to choose what methods of voting they want to use.”
If student strikes were to be recognized under the law, students would also be legally permitted to prevent other students from entering classrooms. Furthermore, it would become more difficult for Quebec courts to provide individual students with injunctions allowing them to cross picket lines.
However, Bédard-Wien expressed disbelief that legalizing student strikes would stop the courts from handing out injunctions entirely. He referred, once again, to labour unions.
“Using the example of workers rights, many legal strikes [are] repressed eventually by injunctions,” he said. “Legislating the right to strike does not necessarily mean that you can no longer use injunctions …. The history of Quebec has many cases of this.”
According to La Presse, Liberal education critic Gerry Sklavounos has also criticized Duchesne’s proposal because Quebec taxpayers would continue to pay for services that no one would benefit from during a potential strike, such as heating, electricity, and professors’ salaries.
Students’ Society of McGill University Vice-President External Robin Reid-Fraser said that the Quebec Student Roundtable (Table de concertation étudiante du Québec, or TaCEQ), of which SSMU is a member association, has yet to take a position on Duchesne’s proposal.
“We … didn’t take a formal position on it because everyone felt like there needed to be more discussionamong our membership,” she said.
She noted that there could be positives to legislating student strikes.
“On the one hand the idea of creating some kind of formal legislation around it is interesting, particularly since this past strike saw, by far, the heaviest legal intervention of any in Quebec history,” she said. “If there is now a lot of precedent for restricting strike activities, then it may be worthwhile to put in place a framework of what is allowed, or at least some procedural aspects to make things clearer.”
She also said that she has a lot of questions that would need to be addressed before she could fully support Duchesne’s proposal.
Her many questions include what a legal framework would look like exactly and if students would be involved in helping to create the specifics of the law.
