Quebec showdown

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Quebec unions have supported the PQ. But for how much longer? this means new political problems in Congress.

AUSTRALA goes to the polls on March 5. The Australian Labour Party looks set to defeat Malcom Fraser's Thatcherite Liberals — but on the basis of a platform including incomes policy.

The Australian monthly Socialist Fight headlines its latest issue, 'Vote Labour - but fight Hawke's freeze'. (Bob Hawke is the new leader of the ALP).

'The majority of workers will rightly want to vote Labour, not because of Labour's record, but in order to deny the bosses a victory in Parliament.

The State Labour govern ments' records are a disgrace... [The last federal Labour prime minister] Whitlam introduced wage indexation as the first step in the reduction in real wages over the past eight years. And it was Hayden, as Treasurer, who first cut $1000 million from social spending in the 1975 budget.

The ALP has never challenged capitalism, it has managed capitalism in the interests of the rich and owerful. The wishes of ALP conferences and affil. iated unions are passed ›ver by the politicians ocialist Fight calls on every worker, not only to vote Labour, but to campaiga for a Labour victor, The fight must be kept uj after the election to push the ALP leaders to break with the bosses and the bankers.

Firstly this will mean gunsi the mage freeze he seed leaders who wil figher fo: and with the work ing dase. in gorerment rad our And me need a Labour moremens capable of calling the leaders to account.

The fight will not finish because Labour wins the election. The power to run society does not lie in parliament, but with the owner ship of industry, the media and the organisation of the army. police and state bureaucracy QUEBEC could see a rerun of its 1972 general strike. Louis Laberge of the FTQ union federation has called for all-out action from March 14 if the teachers are still in dispute with the provincial government.

Noting / the provincial government's draconian new anti-strike laws, and his experience of being jailed for leading strike action in 1972, Laberge said that he was prepared to face prison again. The CSN federation has also called for strike action.

The conflict started with decrees passed by the provincial government last year, cutting public service wages and then freezing them, and imposing increased workloads and job cuts.

200,000 public service workers struck in January and early February, and teachers stayed out until February 20, when they suspended their strike for three weeks to allow negotiations.

College

Talks have taken place between school teachers' representatives and ' the government; but college teachers have had no talks, the provincial government says it will negotiate about details but not the overall figure of $244 million it plans to cut from its bill for teachers' wages, and the first of 24,000 public service workers charged under the ferocious anti-strike laws are due to come up in court on March 7.

Most of the teachers are in a separate union federation, the CEQ. The CEQ, FTQ, and CSN together form the Common Front' which led the 1972 general strike.

That started with a strike of public service workers over wages and conditions, and spread through solidarity action, especially after 50 union leaders were jailed. In the small industrial town of Sept-lles, the local labour movement effectively installed workers' power. The action ended with a partial victory and the freeing of the union leaders.

Duplessis

The provincial government in 1972 was Liberal. For decades until the late. '505... Quebec politics had been dominated by the conservative, inwardlooking, French-Canadian nationalist — and extremely corrupt - Union Nationale of I Maurice Duplessis. When the Union Nationale was eclipsed, after Duplessis's death, in a welter of scandals, the Liberals gained power and pushed through the so-called 'quiet revolution' for 'noisy evolution' • as sceptics called it).

Quebec society was modernised, the status of the French language boosted, the provincial public sector expanded.

The opening-up of provincial politics led to an explosion of national self-assertion by the Quebecois, long the 'white niggers of North America'.

Rene Levesque broke from the Liberals to form the separatist Parti Quebecois, which grew rapidly during the 1970s and now completely dominates provincial politics -though referendums have shown a majority against le syndicat ::*3C *::

SN separation of Quebec from Canada. (The Liberals still sweep Quebec in federal elections - and indeed without Quebec they would be reduced to a rump in all-Canada politics).

In contrast to the clericalism and very rightwing social policies of previous separatist movements, the Parti Quebecois promotes a social-democratic image and is applying to join the Socialist International. The strong support of the provincial union federations has been crucial to its rise.

But that story could be coming to an end. The unions and the PQ have come into head-on conflict. Quebec trade unionists will have to start thinking about an independent workers' "EMBLEA CSM

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