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Title: Grève Générale!
Author: George “Mick” Sweetman
Date: 2004
Language: en
Topics: general strike, Quebec, 1970s, Northeastern Anarchist
Source: Retrieved on March 16, 2016 from https://web.archive.org/web/20160316133935/http://nefac.net/node/1290
Notes: Written by George “Mick” Sweetman, a member of Punching Out (NEFAC-Toronto), a seasonal wage slave (gardener), and is active in the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty’s labor working group. Published in The Northeastern Anarchist Issue #9, Summer/Fall 2004.

George “Mick” Sweetman

Grève Générale!

“Not since the days of the Industrial Workers of the World, since the

days of Joe Hill and the battle for the eight-hour day, has a North

American union movement been so dedicated to the tradition of

revolutionary syndicalism.” — Marcel Pepin (jailed President of the

Confederation of National Trade Unions, 1972)

Thirty-two years ago one of the largest working class rebellions in

North American history exploded in Quebec. 300,000 workers participated

in North America’s largest general strike to that date, radio stations

were seized, factories were occupied, and entire towns were brought

under workers’ control. What made the rebellion possible was not only an

explosive mix of economic exploitation, national oppression, and

government repression, but was also a strong, young, and radicalized

rank and file of the Quebec trade union movement.

La Presse

While the workers’ uprising occurred in May 1972, it is necessary to go

back to 1971 to find the catalyst: a strike at the newspaper La Presse.

The paper had recently been bought out by Paul Desmarais, who wanted to

transform it into a federalist and capitalist propaganda machine and

fire the journalists who didn’t agree with his ideology. Typographical

workers were locked out in an attempt to provoke an illegal strike from

the unionized, seperatist, and socialist journalists who were struggling

against the editorial clampdown and for more worker control over what

was published.

“I don’t think they were after us,” explained Alan Hetitage of the

international typographers union, “they wanted the journalists. If we

had put up a picket line we would have been dead because the journalists

would have respected it and lost their jobs.”

On October 29^(th), 1971, after five months of being locked out, the

union movement held a mass demonstration in support of the locked out La

Presse workers. The company and the Montreal police seized upon this as

an opportunity to attack. The company ceased publishing, fortified the

building, and pronounced that the unionists were responsible for “waves

of violence.”

In fact, the most ‘violent’ act the workers held on the picket line was

one of holding a meeting at a nearby church, creating a vehicle blockade

around the building when they parked their cars. For this the government

banned more than eight workers from gathering near the building.

The next day Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau, in consultation with Premier

Bourassa passed his anti-demonstration bylaw. A no-protest zone of fifty

blocks around the La Presse building was declared.

Over 15,000 workers showed up to march. Carrying placards with such

slogans as “Capitalism equals unemployment, Socialism equals work.” The

march was corralled by police into a “sort of two-edged cul-de-sac

formed by police barricades.”

The Police charged, brutally clubbing anyone they could. Street-fighting

flared between workers and police, even continuing at the hospital that

both sides brought their injured to. Hundreds were injured and one

woman, a young college student and left-wing activist named Michèle

Gauthier, lay dead.

It’s often said that few things are more radicalizing than the end of a

police baton, and on Oct. 29, 1971, the end of the baton — clearly and

deliberately wielded by the state — was felt by the entire working class

of Quebec.

Critically, the strike at La Presse created a working model of a “Common

Front” between usually competitive and divisive union centrals that

represented workers at La Presse during the strike. The common front

model combined with the radicalization in the La Presse strike

foreshadowed a far greater possibility, that of a common front

representing hundreds of thousands of public service workers against

their employer — the state.

The Common Front

Founded in late 1971 and cemented by the shared experience of the La

Presse police riot, a common front between the three largest union

organizations was formed to negotiate with the provincial government

over the upcoming contract of Quebec’s public service workers. The

Common Front represented 210,000 workers out of a total of 250,000

public employees.

The Front’s demands centered around an eight percent raise to match

inflation, job security, a say in working conditions in order to bring

public services closer to the people, a $100 per week minimum wage, and

equal pay for equal work regardless of region, sector, or sex.

The March 28th General Strike

On March 28, 1972, after months of fruitless negotiation, the Common

Front held a one-day general strike. Despite being offered an increase

of 0.4 percent of the original offer by the state, the state refused to

budge on the issue of the $100 per week minimum wage. In response the

Common Front decided to go on an all-out, unlimited general strike on

April 11^(th).

The April 11th General Strike

On April 11, over 210,000 public sector workers struck against the

government, and Quebec grounded to a halt.

The state chose to target the hospital workers, placing injunctions on

61 union hospitals. However, hospital workers defied the injunctions,

stating that management was capable of providing essential services. The

corporate media whipped up stories of patients being forced to sleep in

their own urine.

“They could write stories like that about general hospital conditions

without a strike.” one unfazed striker commented. “The government

doesn’t represent us,” said one court clerk, “It represents Bay Street,

St. James Street, Wall Street, but not us. Our union is the only thing

that represents us.”

Jailed

On April 19, nine days into the general strike, 13 low-paid hospital

workers were jailed 6 months and fined $5000 (about a year’s pay) for

ignoring the injunctions. Their union was fined $70,600. A total 103

workers would be sentenced a total of 24 years and fined half a million

dollars in the course of a few days.

“When the law is ignored and the authority of the courts is openly

defied, there is reason to fear a situation which could degenerate into

anarchy,” said the judgment

Yvon Charbonneau, the teachers’ leader, was furious, “The union movement

may have to go into the resistance in the historic sense of the word.

The day may come when we will have to drop our pencils and chalk. This

government won’t compromise except in the face of arms, maybe there’s a

lesson to be learned,”

Back to Work

On April 21, the government passed Bill 19 into law. Bill 19 in effect

forced the unionized workers back to work, and banned fundamental trade

union rights for a period of two years.

After an initial pledge of civil disobedience, and a hurried vote that

over half of the workers didn’t participate in, the trade union

leadership of the common front recommended that their members return to

work. The general strike was over.

“St. James Street,” declared one St. Jerome worker, “wants to keep

Quebec as a source of cheap labor. They won’t let Bou-Bou give us a

decent wage.”

Revenge

“We’ll go to the court and I’ll plead guilty with pride.” — Louis

Labarge, president of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses

du Québec (FTQ).

The fact that bill 19 had defeated the general strike and made union

action all but illegal wasn’t enough for the state, they wanted revenge

and to make an example of the trade union leadership.

After announcing that the hospital workers shouldn’t have to be the only

ones to face jail, Louis Labarge, Marcel Pepin, and Yvon Charbonneau,

the leaders of the three unions confederations that formed the common

front, were sentenced to a year in jail, as they had all urged them to

disobey the injunctions.

“That’s the justice of the system,” said Labarge, “while big

corporations are fined $75 or $500 for polluting our rivers, killing

people or breaking the law, we — the criminals — must go to jail for

exercising a right — the right to strike.”

Revolt!

Within hours of the beginning of jail time for the ‘big three’ workers

spontaneously started downing their tools and organizing their fellow

workers in what became a full-fledged revolt by the working class.

The longshore workers were the first to walk off the job in Montreal,

Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres, joined an hour later by 5000 teachers in

Joliette, the Gaspe, Chicoutimi, I’Estrie, Sorel, Mont Laurier and the

Mille Iles. CUPE maintenance workers set up picket lines, nurses and

other hospital workers joined them on the picket lines.

That night in the town of Sept-Iles, on Quebec’s isolated north shore,

police tried to break up a workers’ protest in front of the local

courthouse and a fierce battle ensued — the revolt had begun.

One 52-year-old Sept-Iles steelworker had tears in his eyes as he told a

reporter: “They put Louis in jail. They can’t do this. If we let them,

they can put us all in jail, anyone of us.”

Mass meetings were held late in the night and early in the morning, the

workers’ of Sept-Iles called a general strike idling all industry in the

iron-ore port, taking control of the town, and seizing the local radio

station.

“It’s probably the outlying areas that are going to provoke the real

changes in Quebec,” explained Pierre Mercille of the CNTU’s Laurentian

Central Council.

“For years, the ideas came from Montreal, but the most radical actions

came from outside the metropolis: Cabano, Mont Laurier, and now the

massive walkouts of Sept-Iles, St. Jerome, and Sorel. In Montreal, it’s

so big and anonymous, it’s difficult to have co-ordinated action. But in

the little towns, the workers understand fast, they know themselves and

they act.”

In St. Jerome, an industrial area north of Montreal, 400 textile workers

walked off the job and soon found themselves joined by bus drivers,

metal plant workers, teachers, and white-collar workers. At the behest

of unionized workers at the CKJL radio station the strike committee

seized the airwaves and broadcast union statements and revolutionary

music.

Jean Labelle, a 28 year-old factory worker in St. Jerome offered a New

York Times reporter a simple explanation: “What’s our complaint? I guess

the answer is that we’re tired of being pushed around, and now, finally,

we’re pushing back. If we can show them, we’re capable of anything.”

By the next day 80,000 building trades workers were on strike; Mines at

Thetford Mines, Asbestos, and Black Lake were struck; Workers shut down

factories all across the province, including 23 at the St. Jerome

Industrial Park alone.

The popularity of the strike, and the speed at which it spread without

any union organization shows the vital importance of a combative rank

and file, the same rank and file that was pushing the union leadership

found itself in the driver’s seat as the union officials found

themselves being ‘passed on the left’ by a confident and angry working

class. At the height of the week-long strike it was estimated that over

300,000 workers were participating.

At FTQ headquarters in Montreal, one top official said that many of the

union staff “Had underestimated the base, the rank and file.” Even the

outspoken president of the FTQ was shocked, “Louis Laberge called from

jail saying he was expecting protests but nothing on this scale.”

The general strikes were spontaneous and self-organized. For example,

the strike at the Thetford mine started when a small group of workers

walked off the job. Word spread through the mine and within two hours

the strike was total.

In Chibougamau an angry group of women, some of them teachers and

hospital workers, marched to one of the mines and pulled their husbands

off the job.

At the General Motors plant in Ste. Therese, autoworkers asked a few

dozen workers from St. Jerome to set up picket lines at the plant during

lunch hour. When they returned they refused to cross the St. Jerome

pickets and never went back to work.

Workers seized control of 22 radio stations across the province while

forcing the anti-union capitalist newspapers to cease publishing. The

battle for control of information was important, and the workers’ showed

astuteness, creativity and militancy in this fight. As the news from the

striking workers spread, so did the strike itself.

Over 300,000 rank and file workers had self-organized the largest

general strike in North American history. The revolt was so widespread

that the Quebec police knew they could not contain or repress it, and

took a position of non-intervention in order not to provoke a decisive

clash that they predicted they would lose.

In the end the Government decided to negotiate a truce by releasing the

jailed trade unionists and in return the three trade union centres

agreed to tell their members to return to work.

However, just because they returned to work doesn’t mean that the

workers considered themselves defeated. Clement Godbout a Spet-Illes

steelworker summed it up, “The future? I see it as all right, because

the workers have decided to stop fighting just for more money and have

decided to fight for a new society…what kind of new society? Well, I

talk the way I do for a reason — I’m a socialist.”

La lutte continue

The working class, feeling victorious in forcing the unionists’ release,

but not enough to provoke a decisive struggle against the forces of the

state returned to work ending the general strike, but not forgetting it

and the workers’ power they had briefly tasted.

The 1972 May revolt was a turning point in the workers’ movement, not

only in Quebec but one that was felt throughout Canada, that continues

to echo to this day.

Quebec workers were the force behind the largest general strike in North

America’s history, the 1976 Canada wide general strike against wage

controls by the federal government. Over 1.2 million workers from across

Canada participated in the 1976 general strike putting to rest

nationalist claims that workers in Quebec and English Canada could not

join forces due to Anglo-chauvinism.

Today the labor movement in Quebec is in a familiar situation. A new

(neo)-Liberal government in power is systematically dismantling the

social programs, trade union rights, and other gains made by the

workers’ movement. The Quebec government is only the latest in a series

of neo-liberal governments in the past 10 years have ravaged the working

class across Canada.

However, the Quebec union movement offers the last best hope for a

serious fight-back since the 1996 “days of action” strikes that the

Ontario labour and NDP leadership repressed before it could generalize

into an Ontario-wide general strike.

If there is hope for an effective fight-back today it will start with

rank and file Quebec workers taking control of their union movement and

pushing it to general strikes once again.

Things are already moving in this direction, with both the FTQ and CSN

discussing the option of an unlimited province-wide general strike and

putting the question to their membership in late February 2004.

However, as history has shown us, the real strength of the workers’

movement lies not with official calls for action by union leaders, but

by a militant, self-organized, and radicalized rank and file.

Fortunately this is not completely absent. In February 2004, workers at

an Alluminum-works in Jonquière that was slated for downsizing occupied

the plant and ran it at full capacity under workers’ control for almost

a month.

When we are able to spread the spirit of revolt throughout the working

class in Canada and the United States we will have the beginnings of a

true revolutionary movement capable of not only fighting the state and

the bosses, but indeed of getting rid of them altogether and replacing

it with the new society the workers of Quebec spoke of in ’72.

Bibliography

Quotes and statistics from Quebec: A Chronicle 1968–1972, edited by Nick

Auf der Maur and Robert Chodos. James Lewis and Samuel, Toronto, 1972.