BY JOE YOUNG
MONTREAL - The Quebec government is moving ahead with plans to cut approximately 12,000 of 440,000 positions in the public service. This will cut $800 million (Can$1 = US$.72) from annual wage costs as part of an effort to reach a zero budget deficit by the year 2000. On March 18, the Quebec government announced new cuts in education funding of $683 million and $760 million in health care.

By March 21, the government had reached agreements with most of the public sector unions to eliminate jobs through early retirement, threatening to cut workers' salaries by 6 percent if no accord was reached. Law 104, which was adopted by the National Assembly on March 21, cut the earnings of doctors, judges and members of the National Assembly by 6 percent. It also applied this to some groups of workers, such as support staff in the universities, who had not negotiated an agreement.

Initially the government had proposed an across-the-board 6 percent wage cut for all government workers. When this met resistance, Quebec officials proposed instead to cut 15,000 positions through early retirement. Half the cost of the early retirement is to be covered from the workers' pension fund. This plan was accepted December 18 by officials heading six union federations, but important groups within the federations rejected the plan. The opposition came mainly from the 100,000-member Social Affairs Federation (FAS) of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) and the 20,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees of the Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ). These two groups organize hospital workers, who are the lowest paid in the public service. FAS members with full-time jobs earn about $25,000 a year on the average, and half of them are part-time. FAS members rejected the proposed pact by 90 percent. In the end, however, officials of both the FAS and the SCFP reached agreement with the government.

Union officials organized few activities to oppose the government's attacks. The biggest protest was a demonstration of 15,000 organized by all the union federations outside the convention of the Parti Quebecois last November 24. The Parti Quebecois, which heads the Quebec government, is a bourgeois nationalist party that advocates Quebec sovereignty. Another protest of up to 8,000 was organized by the CSN alone on December 7. There were also some work stoppages of a few hours each.

Government cuts have already had a dramatic effect on health care, with emergency wards often overflowing and long waits for operations. At the Louis H. Lafontaine Hospital in Montreal on March 16 there were 65 patients in the emergency ward where normally there is space for 14.

In February, the government announced that in order to achieve its objectives the union contracts would have to be reopened. In particular, teachers who took retirement would not be replaced, class sizes would be increased, and hospital workers who lost their position would have to be prepared to take a job up to 125 km (75 miles) away instead of 50 km. This met strong opposition, in particular from the CEQ, which organizes primarily primary and secondary school teachers. The government withdrew the proposals. In particular, the projected loss of 3,000 primary and secondary school jobs was reduced by over two thirds.

Two thousand people organized by the Coalition for Montreal Schools rallied in Montreal March 22 to protest education cuts. Annie Laroche, a high school student, explained to the crowd that the number of students per class has increased from 31 to 34. "If this continues, soon we will be forced to take a number in order to get a seat."  
 
 
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