A Closer Look at the FAE on Strike
On Friday, December 1st, I wanted to see how my high school teachers were doing amidst the strike that I had seen covered on the news. I was curious about its effect on the people I knew. So, on that class-free Friday, I decided to pay them a visit.
I arrived at around 11 AM. The teachers greeted me and said that, at that point, they had been on strike for seven days. They hadn’t received a salary during those days and hadn’t had any contact with their students in a “student-teacher” context. However, they didn’t seem worried for the students, and they did not seem convinced by Legault’s discourse urging them to cease the strike and “think about the children”. Earlier that week, public school instructors had already gathered downtown to protest and to express their dissatisfaction with the Quebec PM’s propositions, judging them to be inadequate for their situation.
The group of teachers told me that they had been protesting at the bus stop in front of the school, since 7:30 AM and intended on staying until about 2 PM. I noticed that they had flags, some type of stadium horn, as well as a huge bag of candies and boxes of baked goods.
As the 24 bus often stopped where the teachers were standing, a few of them hopped on to offer candy and pastries to the driver and passengers. Many of them happily accepted the sweets.
While all of this was happening, I approached a few of the participating teachers. One of them, Mr. Plante, agreed to an in depth interview. The geography teacher shared how the overall state of Quebec’s public schools explains the strike that has been going on. He told me that many public schools are in need of professionals, such as psychologists, speech therapists, etc. However, these workers often leave the public sector for the higher salaries offered at private institutions. As a result, many public school students are left without the necessary accommodations required for an optimal school experience. On top of that, the dated infrastructures, problems with water quality, and poor ventilation all add to the subpar conditions that teachers deem harmful to all those frequenting the school . Salary, of course, is one of teachers’ main grievances. Mr. Plante and others present expressed their discontentment with what they argue are greatly inadequate salary increases which do not account for the rising cost of living.
When I told Mr. Plante that I was now attending a private CEGEP, he expressed his disappointment regarding the lack of solidarity of private school teachers. He told me that instructors in the private sector would also benefit from the gains coming from the public sector’s protests — such as an increase in salary— but, in his eyes, they mostly chose to remain silent.
To complement the information I gathered from my visit, I also interviewed two second-year Marianopolis students. I wanted to get some student opinions on the situation.
The first student has a younger sister currently attending a public high school. While the strike has not really affected them personally, their sister has been touched by it on an academic level. The sec 5 student hasn’t had a class in about a month and spent that time mostly doing math or physics homework that her teachers had sent her before the school shut down. The interviewee felt worried that their sister could miss important material if the strike were to resume in January and fears that any possible gaps might disadvantage public high school students when transitioning to college. They also highlighted the disparity between public and private establishments and hypothesized that parents might become more reluctant to send their children to public schools in the future because of disruptive events like strikes.
Additionally, the student shared their disappointment with the emphasis on the negative impact of strikes on children’s education in Legault’s speech. They believe that teachers often choose their profession because they genuinely care about children, and not for a higher wage. They added that, by telling public school teachers to “go back to work” for their students, Legault is exploiting the teachers’ empathy and inciting them to return to the working conditions that they are actively protesting. In the student’s eyes, the only person who can stop the strike is Legault, and his reluctance to do so shows hypocrisy. The interviewee further explained that, if our province’s PM truly cared about the children, he would increase the teachers’ salaries to account for the cost of living: consequently, they would be in better health, allowing them to focus on providing their students with quality education.
Another Marianopolis student shared how students were personally affected by the strikes. The most prominent example was the rescheduling of the English Exit Exam (EEE). Though the exam’s original date was December 13, it was pushed to the 20th, which did not align with the student’s plans on that day. She was supposed to have two medical appointments but had to move one of them due to the EEE.
As for her friends who go to a public CEGEP, they did not have school for a week and “their whole schedule was thrown for a loop.” One of those friends’ finals ended on December 22. Additionally, the interviewee shared that her father’s friend, who is a teacher, has not been working or paid since the strike started.
The student views the strike positively, as “it’s not normal that the government doesn’t want to fairly pay their teachers [and/or] provide them with the proper working conditions.” She added that Legault’s decision to spend $7 million in an effort to make the LA Kings play in Quebec City is misdirected and shows his avoidance of the bigger issue at hand.
Although I did not have enough time to gather more voices, a sentiment shared by all those I interviewed is a feeling of disappointment towards our provincial government’s actions. As I am writing this article [the latter half of the week of December 18], two teachers unions have reached some kind of deal with the Quebec government1, but a return to “normal” remains uncertain.
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