Canadian Lawyer InHouse

JULY 2017 28 INHOUSE legislation after a marathon 24-hour debate in the National Assembly. But Desroches-Lapointe says his mem- bers' post-strike silence is understandable due to the discreet nature and vital importance of the jobs to which they have returned. "State lawyers work in anonymity," he says. "Our work is done mostly in the shadows and al - ways in confidentiality and we don't ask for or get the public merit we deserve." Though money was the main public fo- cus of the lawyers' contract demands (a pay increase of 10 per cent over four years, the same conditions that an arbitrator awarded Quebec's 450 Crown counsel a year ago), it was that feeling of indignation that trig - gered the strike and fuelled the lawyers' de- sire to stay out even after the LANEQ's war chest was emptied and many of its members were in dire personal financial straits. The seeds of that discontent were sown in the aftermath of another strike that began on Feb. 8, 2011 when both the LANEQ and the Quebec Crown attorney's union (the Association des procureurs aux poursuites criminelles et pénales) took to the streets in protest over wages and working conditions. It was the first time the lawyers used their legal right to strike, which they were grant - ed in 2003. After just six days, however, the Quebec government ended that Canada- first strike through legislation, much of P oor François Desroches- Lapointe. A board member and spokesman for the Que- bec civil lawyers' and nota- ries' union — Les avocats et notaires de l'État québécois, or LANEQ — he tried in vain in May to find members who were willing to share their first-hand experiences on the picket lines during their historic four-month gen - eral strike, the longest in Canadian public service history. "I tried 16 people," says Desroches- Lapointe, whose regular job is doing litiga- tion work for Quebec's public auto insurance crown corporation, called the SAAQ. "But no one has gotten back to me." That silence is a big change from a few months ago, when the LANEQ's 1,100 members took to the streets, grinding the drafting of provincial bills, the work of tri - bunals and other government business to a crawl, if not a halt. Many striking lawyers openly identified themselves and talked with journalists while on the picket lines, many of them carrying signs with hand-written slogans like Je me souviendrai! (I'll remember!) at the noisy demonstrations they held in the streets of Montreal and Quebec City between Oct. 24, when the strike began, and Feb. 28, when they were ordered back to work by which was cut-and-pasted into the 2017 law. In the fall of 2011, after months of parallel negotiations with the two lawyers' unions, the Quebec government reached a tenta - tive deal with both groups on the issue of wages, which were as much as 40 per cent lower than what provincial lawyers earned in neighbouring barometer-province Ontario. But the government also granted the province's 450 Crown attorneys the right to binding arbitration process in exchange for the right to strike, creating a major schism between the two lawyer groups. "At first we were excited and optimistic because we were sure we were going to get the same right, which we were also asking for," says Desroches-Lapointe. "The gov - ernment initially signalled a willingness to grant it to us, but it never did. "We had the same working conditions as the Crown for 50 years in Quebec, like in every other prov- ince," he says. "But the Quebec government changed all that and refused to reconsider. It was very frustrating for our members." Quebec Treasury Board Minister Pierre Moreau added salt to the civil lawyers' wounds by arguing publicly that they don't require the same level of independence in the determination of their working condi - tions as Crown attorneys. "That was a real slap in the face for state lawyers, and the reason why the (2016-17) strike went on for so long," says Dalia Ge - sualdi-Fecteau, a former government lawyer who teaches labour and employment law at the Université du Québec à Montréal. According to Gesualdi-Fecteau, the legal A CASE OF NO RESPECT? Striking government lawyers in Quebec were forced back to work. Where does that leave them now? BY MARK CARDWELL Credit: The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz

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