No more sit-down strikes! We’re going to paralyze the transit system.
a maintenance worker following the suspension of 73 of his colleagues on August 7, 1974.
On June 26, the CFP organized a discussion session on the booklet Ouvrons nos contrats, résistons aux injections [Let’s Open Our Contracts, Let’s Resist the Injections]. Produced in 1975 at the initiative of the Socialist Group for Quebec Workers and with the participation of the Montreal Transport Union (affiliated with the CSN), the booklet focuses on the summer 1974 strike by maintenance and garage workers at the CTCUM (the predecessor of the STM). This labor dispute deserves to be known and reflected upon by all members and supporters of Workers’ Alliance, as its course so clearly illustrates the essence of a political strike. The workers effectively leveraged their central role in the company’s operations—namely, the maintenance of vehicles that transport a significant portion of Montreal’s working-class population—to assert their interests beyond the labor code and the laws dictated by the elite by ceasing to work.
Background
In August 1974, 1,600 maintenance and garage workers at the Montreal Transit Corporation went on strike following the suspension of 73 of their colleagues who had refused to work on the June 24 and July 1 holidays. This refusal was in response to a directive from the Montreal Transit Union (maintenance workers) to use this form of pressure in reaction to the CTCUM’s resolution not to reopen the collective bargaining agreement. The purpose of reopening the agreement was to amend the wage clause that had been initially negotiated. Against a backdrop of rampant global inflation, the federations had recommended in March 1974 that their affiliates “reopen their collective agreements or decrees with a view to obtaining wage indexation to the cost of living and the back pay they deem appropriate.1 «
This was not merely a recommendation that resonated only among union bureaucrats. At the time, several thousand workers—including white-collar employees and firefighters in Montreal, as well as workers at United Aircraft and Christie—took the initiative to push for the reopening of their contracts in order to index their wages to inflation, which had reached 12% in 1974. In total, 500,000 Quebec workers were calling for such a renegotiation at the time. The labor federations thus appeared to be more supportive of a movement driven by a solid working-class base. It should also be noted that, even at that time, the CSN’s union leadership favored “social dialogue” over pressure tactics democratically exercised by the working class. The union’s executive committee proposed a three-point strategy to combat the decline in purchasing power :
1) engage in discussions with employers at the sectoral level; 2) request a general meeting involving employers, the government, and unions. The CSN leadership cited the 1968 Grenelle Agreements in France as an example; 3) launch a campaign to convince the government to adopt legislation providing for cost-of-living adjustments across the board, for both wage earners and retirees and welfare recipients.2
The Labor Code: A Result of the Class Struggle
A notable aspect of this labor dispute was the head-on confrontation between CTCUM employees and the Quebec legal system. At the time, back-to-work injunctions issued by judges had become a major problem for the labor movement.3 On the very first day of the strike, August 7, the Montreal transit company obtained one to force its employees to return to work. The union leadership reacted quickly and courageously: it called a meeting during which, against the advice of the union council, it proposed that the members present defy the injunction. Ultimately, the members decided, by a majority vote, to defy it. The union leadership then relied on “solidarity and mass action” to support this decision.
As a result, during the 44 days of the strike, a record number of contempt-of-court charges were filed: a total of 234 were brought against the maintenance “boys.” On August 20, the union was fined $50,000, and members charged with contempt were fined amounts ranging from $50 to $750.
The extraordinary nature of the situation becomes clear when reading the remarks made by bourgeois legislators and officials throughout the strike.
The city administration was overwhelmed by the mounting number of contempt of court violations. In September, Mayor Drapeau and the director of the CTCUM deemed it unnecessary to pass a special back-to-work law, since the maintenance workers were not even complying with the court orders. The two men tried in vain to impose a legal resolution on the conflict.
After two weeks of striking, the provincial government appointed Lucien Saulnier as an investigator tasked with finding a resolution to the conflict. Saulnier drafted a report in which he concluded that the strikers were demanding wage indexation to inflation “on the grounds of fairness, not law,” and that this demand was driven by a social movement that governments could not ignore. He therefore recommended that the demands of the “boys from maintenance” be met.
On September 16, the workers accused of repeated contempt appeared before Chief Justice Deschênes of the Superior Court. Deschênes delivered a verdict that highlighted the social dimension already noted in the Saulnier report. More specifically, he noted that the workers were demonstrating “a newfound unity and solidarity” and that they “had realized they could bring the judicial system to a standstill and render political governance impossible”! He added the following observations:
The use of contempt of court proceedings following an injunction—even if it remains appropriate for resolving private disputes—no longer, as a general rule and barring exceptions, meets the demands of our time in the realm of collective disputes. One can, and indeed must, look back with regret on the days when respect for the law was deeply ingrained in social mores and the authority of the courts enjoyed popular support. But regrets are fruitless.4
This represents a significant concession. The chief justice seems to recognize that labor law is the product of class struggle and that, under the current circumstances, the workers’ power renders it obsolete.
Even when a special bill is considered by the Bourassa government in September, his cabinet will strive to find a truly negotiated solution to the conflict. It did indeed seem risky to force a return to work while strikers were overwhelmingly defying court injunctions and the special legislation might have encompassed other contemporary labor disputes taking place outside the legal framework. The risk of the situation spiraling out of control was, it seems, too high.
No less capable than our (grand)parents
On September 18, the union members emerged victorious. They secured wage indexation to inflation, the reversal of the 73 suspensions, and the reimbursement of wages for the suspended employees. Although the strike cost the maintenance workers dearly—more than $1,000 for some—the CSN’s attorney, Maître Clément Richard, compared the outcome of the dispute to an unconditional surrender on the part of CTCUM.
During the CFP discussion, the million-dollar question quickly arose: How were workers back then able to achieve such a high level of mobilization when, today, political strikes seem like a distant tool toward which many of our long-term hopes are directed?
To simply say that the mindset was more combative back then is somewhat simplistic. Obviously, if there were more hard-fought union struggles at the time, the mindset was more combative. But why were there more hard-fought struggles? A satisfactory answer would require considerable historical research. However, we can suggest two factors here.
The booklet notes that the leadership of the maintenance workers’ union was composed of militant and experienced activists. At the turn of the 1960s, a series of political events led Quebec activists to reflect on the drivers of effective political action and to draw appropriate conclusions. Many of these activists subsequently became involved in labor unions and neighborhood groups, steering them toward a fruitful political direction. The magazine Mobilisation, the numerous workers’ committees—such as the FUT, which played an active role in the Sept-Îles takeover—and the radicalization of neighborhood popular committees are testaments to this. It is worth noting that Jacques Beaudoin and Pierre Arnaud—the union president and the union representative for the maintenance workers, respectively—had been activists with the Front d’action populaire, a municipal movement designed for workers whose motto was “workers in power.”
The booklet also highlights the importance of union solidarity for the success of the maintenance workers’ strike. In total, more than 60 unions, from both the private and public sectors, joined the workers’ picket line. In September, bus drivers—who were not on strike—refused to cross the picket lines, even under police escort. It should be noted that the leadership of the bus drivers’ union, for its part, was hostile to the strike and acted as a true “business union” throughout the conflict.
In light of these two factors, we can hypothesize that the maintenance workers’ fighting spirit was partly the result of several years of work by leading labor activists. These activists had gained invaluable experience and knowledge during the 1960s. They were convinced of the need for a more direct confrontation between workers and the state to advance workers’ demands. Each of these confrontations is an opportunity for workers to realize that the game is rigged. Parliament can always pass a law to force wage earners to work against their will. Such confrontations have the potential to amplify union struggles, grounded in workers’ power and waged outside the legal framework. This explains, in part, the workers’ solidarity at that time.
The instability of geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors is undoubtedly at least as great today as it was in the 1970s. These days, what we seem to lack are the subjective factors that drive mobilization—that is, truly collective methods of organization. These methods must refocus political activity on the central social activity of our lives: work. We must move beyond weekend activism. This is the difficult task our organization has set for itself. We can do it. We’re no less capable than our parents or grandparents!
