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Victory!
That word sums up the outcome of the six-week rotating strike, the first of its kind on the North American continent.
Victory for the 9,000 Quebec Hydro workers -office, trades and technicians, all members of CUPE-whose solidarity and militancy won the m better working conditions, higher salaries and the admiration or unionists across Canada.
Victory for all public employees in so-called essential services, whose right to collective bargaining and to the strike weapon has now been reinforced.
Electronic Meeting
Settlement was reached June 26 at an “electronic” meeting of over 30 areas who communicated with each other by means of a province-wide telephone hook-up. At the meeting the workers voted by a majority of 67.7 per cent to accept Hydro’s last offer.
According to Mr. Robert Dean, chief CUPE negotiator, the new two-year contracts call for substantial salary increases, retroactive to Jan. 4, 1967, province-wide wage parity, early implementation of the Co-operative Wage Study plan, longer holidays, fairer grievance procedures and a number of other improvements in fringe benefits and working conditions.
Breakthrough
The idea of the rotating strike was hailed by labour, the press and governments as a breakthrough in industrial relations. Instead of a mass walkout of all Hydro Employees, the strike rotated from one region to another. This created maximum harassment for the Hydro management without harming the public.
In a telegram addressed to CUPE Quebec Director Andre Thibaudeau, National President Stanley Little congratulated the Quebec Hydro workers for their “ingenuity and conduct during the strike.”
”The Quebec Hydro workers have opened a new era for public employees throughout Canada. You have proven that workers in what is commonly called the essential public services can go on strike without harming the public.
“You can be proud of what you have accomplished. The Canadian Union is proud of you.”