{"id":317769,"date":"2025-12-01T04:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T04:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317769\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T04:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T04:53:11","slug":"downtown-montreal-packed-as-thousands-rally-against-anti-union-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/317769\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown Montreal packed as thousands rally against anti-union measures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unions and community groups gathered at Place du Canada in Montreal on Saturday for a massive demonstration called \u201cDans la rue pour le Qu\u00e9bec\u201d \u2014in the streets for Quebec\u2014 marching together against the CAQ government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Demonstrators headed to the offices of Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault and Labour Minister Jean Boulet to say no to budget cuts, anti-union measures, and laws that threaten workers\u2019 rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n

\"\"Unions and community groups gathered at Place du Canada in Montreal on Saturday for a massive demonstration called \u201cDans la rue pour le Qu\u00e9bec\u201d, marching together against the CAQ government.\u00a0(Alan Sukonnik, CityNews)<\/p>\n

\u201cI came alone from Saint-Eustache and we\u2019re here because we think that the government of Mr. Legault has been attacking unions and union rights which is attacking the rights of the people. And this concerns me and I want to show my concern today,\u201d said a retired man from the FAE teachers union.<\/p>\n

C\u00e9line, a retired employee of Quebec\u2019s correctional institutions, was at the protest and said, \u201cI\u2019m here to manifest with everybody in Quebec about our work, about the conventions that are not signed yet, about almost everything that\u2019s happening right now with the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The action took place the day before Boulet\u2019s fast-tracking of Bill 14 goes into effect on November 30\u2014 a law that gives the government tools to quickly end labour disputes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the STM we had a clear example of the effect it might have on the bargaining process because at some point when the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Transport [de Montreal] realized that it didn\u2019t need to bargain because the bill would be enforced sooner than later, they just stopped bargaining,\u201d said Bertrand Guibord, the president of Conseil Central du Montreal M\u00e9tropolitain-CSN. \u201cThat had a real concrete effect on the dynamics at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat started as a union protest is not really a protest of all civil society against the CAQ\u2019s government and its right-wing attacks on everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill 3, another target of the demonstration, aims to restrict the ability of unions to use their dues to fund anything beyond bargaining, contracts, working conditions, or core union obligations.<\/p>\n

That means organizing events like this could become much harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, just imagine if you can opt out those union dues you will be faced like in some case some members will pay, some members will won\u2019t pay. So it will be super difficult to manage, just manage the system by itself will be super difficult,\u201d said Frederic, a CSN member.<\/p>\n

Guibord added, \u201cThis is a historical moment. If Legault actually gets what he wants we will be brought back decades and decades in terms of social and democratic rights. It\u2019s really an important moment. It\u2019s not a matter whether you like unions or not. It\u2019s a matter if you want to protect your own rights as a citizen to have an impact on political life in Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unions and community groups gathered at Place du Canada in Montreal on Saturday for a massive demonstration called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-317769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}