Conseil central
du Montréal
métropolitain–CSN
November 2014
Volume 28
Number 8
How do you spell disrespect?
S-U-C-R-E L-A-N-T-I-C
5 9 j o bs axe D fo r pr o fits
Jobs Axed at Sucre Lantic
Disrespect Sinks to New Lows
Good jobs are hard to come by (especially in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montreal)
when austerity measures are the order of the day. So when dozens of them are lost
in one fell swoop, the void is difficult to fill.
T
hat is how the 59 Sucre Lantic
employees felt on September 10
after their job positions were deepsixed. As if this kind of news was not
already difficult enough to digest,
management showed extreme
disrespect in the way it announced
the dismissals. Many employees
were warned upon their arrival at
work, whereas others were called
at home and refused access to the
plant when they came to work the
next day. Some were even escorted
away by security guards, despite the
years of service they had given the
company.
“Nothing we said got through
to management in the meetings we
held this summer, together with the
unions at Sucre Lantic,” said Jade
Wang, president of the Syndicat
des techniciennes et des techniciens
du département qualité de Sucre
Lantic–CSN (the CSN’s union of
quality assurance technicians at
Sucre Lantic). “It was disgraceful
to see this employer talk about the
company’s ‘employee recognition
program,’ when it was obviously
already planning to cut a substantial
number of job positions.”
Profits Above All
Rogers Sugar, the owner of the plant
located on Notre-Dame Street, in
Montreal East, attempted to justify
the job cuts by blaming foreign competition.
“Yet sugar is subject to customs
barriers, which include the standards that get set every five years,”
said Marc L’Heureux, president of
Syndicat des travailleuses et travailleurs de Sucre Lantic–CSN (or
STTSL, the CSN workers union at
Jade Wang with Marc L’Heureux, Sucre Lantic Union spokesperson.
SPPTU-CSN’s Collective
Agreement Is Renewed
Wage
Recognition
Maintained at
Téluq
2 • November 2014 Unité
Sucre Lantic). According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, companies can report any unfair trade
practices they see to the Canadian
International Trade Tribunal, which
“can recommend that protective
tariffs be applied,” as was the case
in 1995, in 2000 and in 2005, thereby protecting the national sugar
industry. The president of the union
explained that tariff barriers will be
reviewed two years from now. So
nothing justifies doing away with
A
these job positions, as there was no
decrease in the number of orders to
be filled. The only explanation for
these dismissals is that the company
wanted to beef up shareholder profits by reducing its operating costs.
Honouring the Collective
Agreement
On top of the brutal way it
announced these dismissals, management broke the rules of the collective agreement. The unions that
represent the workers are demanding that it honour the collective
agreement and will keep mobilizing to make sure the employer
sees reason.
“We won’t back down. Our
voices must be heard and we are
going to keep publicly denouncing
Sucre Lantic for what it has done,”
said Madam Wang who wants a
meeting with the unions to comprehensively re-evaluate this sad state
of affairs. The discouraged union
rep feels for these employees: “It is
a real tragedy for people who lose
good jobs this way,” she said.
Emmanuelle Proulx
Union Advisor
fter their October 9 general assembly, 82% of the members of Syndicat
des tuteurs et tutrices de la Télé-université–CSN (or SPPTU, the CSN teleuniversity tutors union) ratified an agreement in principle with management. The
tentative agreement includes re-establishing wage recognition and an associated
retroactivity of wages—the main union demands that management had previously
refused to honour because the financial situation at Téluq had grown worse. You
may recall that the issue of recognition sparked an 11-week strike in 2008. Last
August, the union equipped itself with a 97% strike mandate, prepared for the
possibility that it might not reach an agreement with Téluq. Bargaining began
in the early fall of 2013.
Couillard’s Austerity Plan
Manon Perron
Secrétaire générale du CCMM-CSN
Cut to the Bone:
Butchering Public Services
T
he trial balloons and announcements about cutbacks have
been flying fast and furious this fall. Bad news always
comes in pairs, as they say. We are being told that public
services will not be affected, but we know better. Couillard,
Barrette and Bolduc’s austerity plan is nothing more than a cold,
callous accounting calculation. There is no vision behind it!
Cutting Where It Hurts Most
In fact, the public’s access to health care services is being directly
affected, as job positions like those at CSSS Laval or CSSS
Dorval–Lachine–LaSalle have been cut. These decisions have
nothing to do with the structure of the system, as Minister
Barrette would have us believe. And who picks up the tab for
these kind of cuts? Most often, it is our senior citizens and others
who already have problems accessing front-line services. In fact,
access has been problematic for these groups since the two waves
of health care reforms and the budget cutbacks that began in
the mid-1990s. Over $80 million in cuts were announced for
Montreal in September, threatening accessibility at all levels of
health care services.
In the area of education, our elementary and secondary
networks are suffering. The Education Minister ordered them to
“do their homework” before student success initiatives were cut.
But they challenged the Education Minister to send in an auditor
for a closer look at their financial situation. Slashing
$9 million from the budget of the Commission scolaire de
Montréal (CSDM—Montreal’s school board) has led to an
impasse. The value of integrating newcomers, improving the
quality of French and reducing drop-out rates has not been
factored into the robotic accounting calculations behind these
cuts. The minister has been taking advantage of his standoff
with the school commissions to discredit them and threaten to
do away with them altogether. He has promised to deliver his
verdict the day after the school elections are held. But, if he
makes good on his threat, who will ensure that resources are
fairly distributed? Will every school be left to fend for itself ?
Meanwhile, the entire university community has voiced
strong objections to the deep cuts made to its funding. Sessional
professors will bear the brunt of these cuts and services to
students will inevitably be affected. It is also a good bet that the
public debate over increasing tuition fees will be reignited before
long.
The government backed down on some of the measures
in its austerity plan when it saw that public opinion had shifted
against it. But now it has announced reforms to social assistance
programs, targeting (among others) recipients who frequently
leave the country. It wants to make sure that they are really
looking for work and not “soaking up the sun in the South.” It
seems obvious that the government fed this line to the media to
fuel the fires of prejudice about people on social assistance. In
reality, they do not live this way at all. Only 8% of those living
in poverty conditions and collecting social assistance benefits
have no recognized “employment constraints.” Their $610 in
monthly benefits only make up 31% of the low-income cutoff
before taxes, according to Statistics Canada. Trips down south
are beyond their reach. Moreover, decade upon decade of
reforms have excluded increasing numbers of people from even
qualifying for social assistance.
This austerity plan paints a very bleak view of the future.
Does the government lack foresight? That’s putting it mildly!
In other parts of the world, the bitter “medicine” of austerity
has failed lamentably and yet our government is hell-bent on
applying it here. Social groups and union movements have
other solutions to offer. We have every right to demand that the
government do better, and we have done so on october 31, at a
demonstration called by the Coalition Against User Fees and the
Privatization of Public Services and we will again on November
29, at a demonstration organized by a number of union and
community groups (at Place du Canada at 1 p.m.). Important
date to remember! Unité November 2014 • 3
Strike Vote at CSSS Laval
Quebec’s Labour Relations Board: The Union Was Right!
T
he Syndicat des travailleuses
et travailleurs du CSSS Laval–
CSN (or the STT, the CSN workers
union at CSSS Laval) has reached a
major milestone in its fight with the
Couillard government. On October
3, the union held a strike vote to protest against the loss of eight beneficiary attendant positions in the
emergency overflow unit at Hôpital
de la Cité-de-la-Santé in Laval. With
its strike mandate in hand, the union
wanted to notify the public about
the impact of losing these positions
and about the $12 million in cutbacks this year at CSSS Laval. The
goal of a strike would not have been
to reduce services but to persuade
management to support essential
services, which means maintaining
90% of services at all times. With
eight job positions being eliminated, only 75% of services were to
be maintained.
The day of the strike vote,
management at CSSS asked the
Commission des relations de tra-
vail (or the CRT, Quebec’s labour
relations board) to issue a series
of court orders against the union,
alleging that the strike was illegal.
But the Commission’s unequivocal
ruling against this allegation ended
up being useful to the union, as
the CRT refused to support any
of management’s arguments. No
court orders were leveled against
the workers by Commissioner Judith
Lapointe, who went one step further
and called upon them to come back
to the CRT if it had any evidence
that care to patients was suffering
after the recent cutbacks. This is a
historic decision for the union!
“We made a bold move,” said
Marjolaine Aubé, president of the
STT du CSSS Laval–CSN during a
demonstration in front of the hospital on October 5. “The goal of the
strike was to force the employer to
add personnel. We did not want to
deprive the public of services, we
wanted to give them services! The
strike did not take place, instead
STT du CSSS Laval organized a major demonstration
in front of Hôpital de la Cité-de-la-Santé on October 5
to protest against the elimination
of job positions. An inter-union
demonstration was held one
week later, on October 13,
2014.
4 • November 2014 Unité
More Jobs on the
Chopping Block
Marjolaine Aubé, president of the
STT du CSSS Laval–CSN.
we succeeded in ensuring that the
CRT would keep an eye on what
is happening in the hospital.” Even
though it has not yet established that
services will be provided by using at
least 90% of personnel (as is legally
required), it remains that the union
has won a major victory.
In all, close to 200 job positions
will be lost at CSSS Laval. “Staff
is at the end of its tether. It is
clear that this will affect services to the public,” said a very
frustrated Isabelle Duhaime,
pre­­
sident of the Syndicat des
infirmières, inhalothérapeutes et
infirmières auxiliaires de Laval
(the CSQ’s union of nurses, respiratory therapists and licensed
practical nurses in Laval.) Marjolaine Aubé, the president of STT
du CSSS Laval–CSN, launched a
heart-felt appeal: “It is vulnerable people, the ones in need of
public services, who are under attack. If the public doesn’t stand
up to be counted, soon our credit
cards will be replacing our health
care cards to get services!”
Emmanuelle Proulx
Union Advisor
Austerity and Its
Tangible Impacts
The budget cutbacks forced
upon CSSS Laval have already
hit hard at Cité-de-la-Santé.
Since early August, hours spent
on disinfection have been cancelled across the board and
patients presenting with psychiatric problems are no longer
being individually monitored.
Some patients have run away
from the overflow unit and one
was found wandering down
René-Laennec Boulevard, in
Laval. Since job positions were
eliminated in this unit, beneficiary attendants must take
care of 13 patients each and
only succeed in bathing half of
their clients every day.