Students demonstrate in Montreal, Canada, on April 2, 2015 to protest Quebec Couillard's government austerity plan.Alexandre Claude
For weeks, some of Quebec's university and CÉGEP junior college students have been "on strike" to protest the provincial government's austerity measures.
Quebec Education Minister François Blais insists students don't have a right to strike and other opponents have dubbed the movement an undemocratic boycott, not a strike, a position that has inflamed the passions of those who have walked out.
The provincial federation of CÉGEPs says the way to end the disruptive and sometimes violent walkouts is to give students the right to strike and, along with it, to establish clear rules.
"The fundamental problem right now is that the rules vary widely from one school to another and even from one faculty to another," Bernard Tremblay, head of the Fédération des CÉGEPs, said in an interview. (CÉGEP is a French acronym for Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, Quebec's unique system of pre-university colleges and technical programs.)
He added the heads of the province's 48 public CÉGEPs are unanimous in wanting standard rules, including secret ballots and mechanisms that ensure all students can vote to strike. Without strike-related legislation, which sets out the rules in labour disputes, tensions arise when some students set up picket lines and others decide they don't want to respect them.
Protesting students are targeting cuts to public funding, and they have been joined by community groups and activists from the health and education sectors. But there are divisions, as some student groups are opposed to the movement, dubbed Printemps 2015.
Guillaume Rousseau, a law professor at the Université de Sherbrooke who has studied the history of student strikes, said a lack of clear rules creates a "grey area" that is the source of much tension. The result is usually that a group opposing the protest seeks an injunction and then the situation escalates, which is what happened last week at the Université du Québec à Montréal, when police moved in to enforce an injunction and masked protesters responded with a violent rampage.
Prof. Rousseau said the solution is to have students sign a contract with their institutes of higher learning, one that includes a strike clause alongside the current mandatory student fees.
Student groups are also divided on the value of right-to-strike legislation.
Andra Florea, communications secretary for the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), one of the more militant student groups, said that while right-to-strike legislation might be useful in theory, students are "extremely skeptical" of the motives of those who are promoting this approach. She said the current strikes are democratic and legitimate and the talk of legislation is a distraction.
A spokesperson for the Confédération des associations étudiants et étudiantes de l'Université Laval (CADEUL) said the devil is in the details. CADEUL currently supports the call for right-to-strike legislation in principle, but it was due to meet Sunday night to flesh out its position.
Fondation 1625, a student group that opposes the movement, takes the position that students are purchasing a service from CÉGEPs and universities and they should be afforded consumer protections, not be treated like unionized employees.
This echoes the government position. In his comments rejecting the call for legislation, Mr. Blais invoked the "right to study" of students, much like some employers who oppose strict labour laws speak of the "right to work."
In fact, the underlying issues mirror those that exist between employers and unionized employees in the larger work force.
Mr. Tremblay, who represents the CÉGEP association, said what makes student associations unique is that there is already legislation, dating back to 1983, which accredits them as the official representatives of students and allows them to collect mandatory student fees, roles that are identical to labour unions.
"The only thing missing in that legislation is the right to strike. That's the unfinished business," he said.