The 550,000 public sector workers in the province of Quebec (Canada) have voted 95% in favor of an indefinite general strike (IGS) to be exercised in October. On September 23, over 100,000 workers demonstrated to show their determination. In a leaflet from the NWBCW-Montreal (No War But the Class War) committee distributed at the demonstration, it was mentioned that “we need to prepare for a general strike by creating strike or struggle committees of all workers, whatever their union affiliation, whether unionized or not, and whatever their job. This is the first way to fight against divisions and the weakening of our forces. We need to take part in union meetings and make proposals to counter union division and sabotage, especially if they come back with the same proposals for action that have failed in the past: isolated actions, sectoral strikes, one or two-day strikes and even a few hours per union. NWBCW committees support workers’ struggles because today they are no longer determined solely by the crisis – the defense of national capital against economic rivals - but also by the needs, more or less direct depending on the country, of the push towards generalized war; in particular, the need to develop war economies and rearm. In this situation, every workers’ struggle represents, objectively and regardless of the consciousness of the proletarians involved, a dynamic of opposition to the crisis and the march towards war of its own national capital. And this applies both economically and ideologically, by tending – and only by tending – to break with the framework of defense of national capital and national unity with its own bourgeoisie.”

A month late, in November, the “Front Commun des syndicats” [Common Front of the Unions] and non-participating unions to it embarked on a multitude of strikes lasting from a few hours to a few days. As for the FAE (35% of teachers), it opted for a IGS lasting 22 days. This strike, completely isolated from other workers, was never extended to other public or private sectors.

In an IGCL leaflet distributed during the strike days, we wrote: “It’s no longer so much a matter, as a matter of priority, of calling for the formation of struggle committees or the like to prepare and encourage a truly ‘unlimited and united’ strike and its extension beyond the public sector. Today, in the first days of the movement, it is a matter of: calling directly on all public-sector trades and corporations to strike at the same time and all together; calling on them to extend the strike beyond the public sector, into the private sector; calling on all proletarians in Quebec, public and private, to strike immediately and indefinitely, breaking with national unity and the ban on real strikes. And if there are struggle committees, it is up to them to focus all their intervention on these watchwords.”

On December 27, the unions announced an agreement in principle without disclosing any information, and ended all strikes. Legault’s provincial government did not need to pass injunctions and laws to stop the strikes. The unions, as an organ of the capitalist state, took care of that.

And to make sure that public sector workers do not go on an IGS, the unions called for votes between January 8 and February 19, to put an end to any hint of a struggle and ensure acceptance of the government’s offers. And most unions held video-conference meetings. The Alliance des professeures et des professeurs de Montréal, for example, held such demobilizing assemblies from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., with 52% acceptance of the government’s offer.

Although unions try to keep a tight rein on face-to-face meetings, video-conference meetings should be rejected outright. The total control exercised by the unions, who organize video conferences, allows them to maneuver in case the vote does not go their way. Not only does staying at home not allow workers to engage in a genuine contradictory “debate” on the struggle itself, in this case the value of the wage agreement, working conditions, and on the direction and modalities of the strike itself. This isolation, increasingly put forward by the unions for both strike votes and management offers, prevents workers from “feeling” the strength and vitality of their collective, so that they can realize that united in the struggle, they are much more than a sum of votes for or against.