LABOUR and QUEBEC
The labour movement in Quebec was profoundly influenced by the province's distinct cultural heritage and therefore evolved differently than in the rest of Canada. Church leaders and labour activists worked together to create a network of unions, eventually embodied in the Confédération des Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada (CTCC), intended to safeguard Quebec's French and Catholic culture. The CTCC (later the Confederation of National Trade Unions) competed for worker support with labour organizations found elsewhere in Canada, with both groups securing thousands of members.
The origins of a distinct Quebec labour movement date from the dawn of the 20th century. Until that time, union organizing had been proceeding in similar ways to the rest of the country. Craft unions, such as les Chevaliers de Saint-Crispin, had begun to appear by the 1860s. The Knights of Labor made inroads in Quebec's labour movement in the 1880s. After the decline of the Knights at the turn of the century, a movement emerged to establish Catholic unions or syndicats in opposition to the international craft unions already in the province. The syndicats were the outcome of several trends in French Canadian culture - an increase in French-Canadian nationalism and an upsurge in the Catholic Church's interest in social issues starting in the 1890s. These unions sought to protect French Canada's separate identity and uphold Catholic ideas in a continent increasingly materialistic and democratic. Priests sought to shape a labour movement in which worker resistance to employer control would be tempered by the Catholic emphasis on respect for authority. Reflecting important aspects of French Canadian values, the syndicats spread quickly across Quebec and eventually became affiliated in the CTCC, founded in 1921.
The syndicats gradually abandoned their restraint and became more assertive in the face of employer hostility. By the end of the 1940s, Jean Marchand and other militant lay leaders had taken over leadership positions. The shift was reflected in the Asbestos Strike of 1949, in which asbestos workers in les Cantons de l'Est (Eastern Townships), backed by the CTCC, received support from other unions, intellectuals such as Pierre Elliot Trudeau, left-wing priests, and nationalists in their fight against employers, the Duplessis provincial government, members of the Catholic Church, and strikebreakers. While the strike was unsuccessful, it marked a turning point in Quebec's history, demonstrating the increasing militancy of the syndicats and the growing public awareness of workers' issues.
By the mid 1950s, the CTCC was becoming isolated. While it had about 100,000 members, representing 43 percent of the organized workers in Quebec, it was faced with the growing influence of the industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as well as the craft unions of the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC). In 1956, these two groups of unions amalgamated to form the Quebec Federation of Labour (QFL).
In the 1960s, however, the syndicats made a resurgence, buoyed by the growing secularist nationalism of Quebec inspired by events such as the Radio-Canada strike of 1958-59. Under Jean Marchand, the CTCC renamed itself the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNTU) in 1961, reflecting the shift away from Catholicism in Quebec and towards material development and preservation of secular heritage. The CNTU became more aggressive in recruiting members and grew dramatically at the expense of the QFL. By the end of the decade, it was being heavily influenced by left-wing sentiment arising from the 'youth revolt' and by the growing support for the Quebec separatist movement. It became one of the most controversial labour organizations in North America, supporting syndicalist action - the achievement of major social change through massive general strikes. The period climaxed with the general strike of 1972 in which the CNTU formed a common front with the QFL and the Quebec Teachers' Corporation to demand wage increases for all public-sector workers. While this strike was broken by the arrest of its leaders and by legislation forcing employees back to work, the CNTU and the rest of the Quebec labour movement has continued to be a militant force in Quebec society ever since.