The last time they went on strike, they were interns. Now they're back picketing as teachers

When Chloé Cabral-Châtelier was doing her education internships without pay, she felt so squeezed she joined the 54,000 university and CEGEP students across Quebec who walked out for a week to protest against unpaid internships in November 2018.

Now she finds herself back on the picket line with the Fédération autonome de l'enseignement (FAE), which represents 65,000 teachers across the province. Cabral-Châtelier says a lot of the demands are the same as when she was interning.

Many who graduated with Cabral-Châtelier left the profession entirely, and those who stayed are on strike once again.

"It's frustrating that things didn't change. We're four years later but we're in the same boat. It's the same issues — we're still talking about workloads and pay. The examples are different but the principle is the same," she said.

At the time, Cabral-Châtelier said she felt slighted when her male friends in engineering were getting well-paid internships while she had to work for free. She felt the sector she chose to work in was undervalued.

"When you do an internship in education or other similar fields, it's a huge weight mentally, physically and financially on the students," she said.

"So it brought out that anger and sense of injustice."

She says her colleagues who have been picketing for over 15 days are echoing what she and her university cohort were saying back in 2018 and 2019.

"We were being told in university to 'figure it out on your own with your internship, money and workload,' and now as a teacher, again it's 'figure it out!'" she said.

Most strikers are women

Rosaline Meunier, a special education teacher in preschool who was part of the student mobilization during the internship strikes, points out that the vast majority of those currently on strike are women — just like during the intern strikes.

"Back then, we were hearing that we needed to recognize the value of people working in the public sector, so teachers needed to be recognized," she said.

"We can see that the government doesn't value care workers as much as other workers, and most of those workers are women. So we can say that maybe they don't value women as much as they value men."

Barry Eidlin, a labour expert and sociology professor at McGill University, says Meunier is hitting the nail on the head.

He says the devaluation of care work — which includes nursing, teaching, personal care, early childhood education and social workers — is a recurring theme in labour struggles.

"The higher the percentage of women, the lower the wage," said Eidlin.

"It's been a key part of the labour movement's mission to address pay equity, and it's been a key part of these strikes."

In early December, National Assembly Speaker Nathalie Roy even added the words "exploiting women" to the list of unparliamentary language. The move came after Québec Solidaire MNA Christine Labrie pointed out that most public sector workers are women who feel taken advantage of.

Eidlin says wages are the most obvious indicator of how someone's work is valued, but so are working conditions and respect for professions. He says society and the economy can't function without making sure children, seniors and sick people are taken care of, and workers want that acknowledged.

"What we're seeing is how essential all that day-to-day work of caring for people is in terms of making society function," said Eidlin. "That's really throwing regular day-to-day life into a loop because that work is not not being done."

Eidlin points out that Quebec has a long history of union activism from students and workers.

Justine Laurent-Allard, a primary school teacher who participated in several student strikes, says it's been exhausting.

"I'm fighting really hard for the profession I love and want to do," she said.

Five years ago, people argued education interns didn't deserve to be paid despite it being a regular practice in other fields, said Laurent-Allard. Now she feels she needs to prove her work has value.

"We're not asking for the moon, we just want to be taken seriously," she said.

A question of political will

When Marion Miller got the news that her last internship in education would be remunerated after mass student strikes against unpaid internships, she was over the moon. But four years later she's on strike once again.

"It's discouraging to see my colleagues and so many people who believe in quality public education and the government is not willing to listen," she said.

Since then, the government rolled back how much teaching interns get paid.

"Once again, it shows a lack of seriousness from the [Coalition Avenir Québec government] to actually address the teacher shortage and the problems in education," she said.

"We've seen it now with the two mandates of the CAQ, the real disdain and distrust and paternalistic attitude toward teachers."

But the CAQ government insists negotiations are going well. Premier François Legault said on Wednesday that kids could be back in school by Monday. The office of Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel said Thursday that she's "convinced that we have a deal within our grasp."

She said there were advances in terms of class composition, assessment of workload, classroom assistance and possible compensation, among other things.

Miller says massive reinvestments are necessary to bring Quebec's public education back up to an acceptable level, but there's a perceived lack of political will. Eidlin agrees, saying quality public services require a quality public workforce.

"A lot of government spending is a question of priorities and not constraints — and the workers know that," he said, pointing out that Quebec was happy to open its wallet for Northvolt and the LA Kings.

But the striking teachers say they know the value of their work and they won't back down until the government concedes on their core demands, like class composition.

"They're the same women that keep our public services open and keep our schools working 200 days a year," said Miller. "We have to highlight the determination of these women in the face of this resistance from the government."