Sit-ins in the Quebec Health Sector: Women at the Forefront

On February 14, 2019, about fifty nurses from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean occupied the headquarters of their University Integrated Center for Health and Social Services (CIUSSS) to denounce the systematic use of mandatory overtime (TSO) to alleviate the lack of personnel in Quebec hospitals. While an overwhelming majority of nurses oppose TSOs, they are the rule and a major problem, affecting the quality of care and the health of workers in the sector. TSOs force nurses to work, sometimes up to 16 hours in a row, without any type of notice and force them to organize themselves through Facebook to try to get around them so they do not get trapped at work.

The main reason for using TSOs is the lack of personnel in the health system. Quebec’s health care system has been in crisis for nearly three decades, bled by successive capitalist reforms. The shortage of manpower was greatly aggravated with the cuts of $ 963.4 million in the sector by Minister Barrette between 2014 and 2016.

Last winter, spontaneous sit‑ins of workers began in Trois-Rivières, Sorel and Laval to oppose the TSOs without any support from their unions. The Federation of Nurses of Quebec, through its president, Nancy Bédard, even insisted on disregarding sit‑ins that claimed they were “absolutely not” controlled by the union. This obviously recalls the words of the former president of the FIQ, Régine Laurent, saying it was necessary “to find all the means, except the strike” in the negotiations with the government.

All over Quebec, emergencies are overflowing. In some establishments, the occupancy rate of stretchers rises steadily up to 200% of that of regular beds!

Visibility initiatives (buttons, t‑shirts) were organized by women workers (women are still in the majority in the health sector in Quebec). Demonstrations were also organized, the most recent having taken place on February 28, 2019 at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.

But the most visible and significant actions to date are the spontaneous sit‑ins that have occurred across the province. They show the generalized sluggishness and class instinct that express themselves in distrust, both with regard to the state and its iniquitous directives, but also to the regime unions and their class conciliation policies and co‑management of the capitalist disaster.