MONTREAL—Nine hundred and eighty professors at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) have been on strike since March 16. They are demanding income parity with other Quebec university professors and the hiring of 300 new teachers to reduce class sizes.

UQAM professors earn 10 percent less than the other university professors in Quebec. Student associations representing more than 30,000 students have gone on strike in support of the professors. A judge granted UQAM an injunction limiting the strikers’ ability to reach out for support.

The strike is a first test of Quebec unionists’ capacity, in the middle of the deepening crisis of world capitalism, to defend not only their working conditions but also the quality of social programs, particularly in education and health. Hundreds of thousands of Quebec government employees are preparing to negotiate new collective agreements in 2009.

—MICHEL DUGRÉ