Student struggle and Assemblies of neighbourhoods Internationalist Communists - Klasbatalo 3 Table of contents Spring 2012 student movement - An international economic crisis, drastic austerity measures worldwide ... and rising tuition - The struggle against tuition fees is part of the struggle against capitalist attacks on our living conditions - Student unionism - The student movement isolates itself and is isolated from the labor movement - Social strike radical students and minorities - The question of violence - The beginning of the end: the elections mark the end of the movement and its defeat through extensive student participation in those elections - The summit on education and continuation of austerity measures Autonomous Popular Assemblies of the neighbourhoods: our intervention in the APAQs - ’Democracy’ gives birth to Bill 78 - The manifestations casseroles movement: the working class and the middle class in solidarity with the student movement - Democratic illusions and the civic “manifestations casseroles - The casseroles seem to want to give themselves a political extension: creation of the APAQs - The APAQs supported the student movement, but were also put in tow - Autonomy according to the APAQs - Struggles of tendancies: localism and anarchist individualism disrupt the APAQs - The end of the wave of struggle, the drift to self-management Annexes General strike or electoral circus The organisation of the proletariat outside periods of open struggle (workers' groups, nuclei, circles, committees) 4 Spring 2012 student movement capitalist recovery of large parts of the market, following the acquisition of the This text won’t go into a precise smaller capitalists derailed by the crisis, chronology of the 2012 student strike. puts it on track towards higher profits. But Instead, what we’ll present is a political this comes down to the increased analysis of the struggle that unfolded last exploitation of labour, of which the crisis year. We intend this both as an assessment is a pretext among many others, for boards of the movement, as well as a preparatory of directors to pull new profits out of a hat tool for coming struggles. in the aftermath of an economic cataclysm. Increased exploitation is synonymous with An international economic crisis, drastic austerity. And austerity is synonymous austerity measures worldwide ... and with lower wages, longer working hours, rising tuition. delays and cuts to pensions, rising unemployment, etc. In short, for us Last spring’s student struggle against proletarians, austerity means sacrifice, tuition hikes wasn’t a bolt out of the blue. humiliation and a decline in living Since the 2008 US financial crisis, the standards. This is what is happening on an deteriorating economic situation has international scale for workers: austerity in become increasingly global and Greece, unemployment in Spain, pension international in nature. Without getting ‘reform’ in France to name just a few. specifically into the causes of the economic crisis - other texts provide good The state also plays a fundamental role in explanations1 - it is important to the adoption of austerity. Being "the understand its consequences. Capitalism’s bourgeoisie’s executive committee" crisis is quite evident, simply in the (Marx), the capitalist state reacts much like growing loss of profitability of capitalist a captain of industry. Its watchwords are enterprise and the lack of opportunities, fiscal restraint, belt-tightening, and which necessarily entails a reorganization trimming the fat, but also, and more of markets (through bankruptcy, fundamentally, as it directly affects our concentration, etc.). For capital, this crisis living conditions, cuts to social programs. is the moment of truth – a make or break Thus, politicians and the business sector, situation – to ensure growing profitability brandish the enormous state debt plaguing for business, in short, to fetch higher our society, against which we, as citizens profits than in the pre-crisis period. The for the good of the nation (sic), must make bourgeois solution to the crisis, as a last sacrifices to resolve the crisis. It is resort, has always been and will always be important to raise a fundamental point imperialist war. here. The various national debts in the world are symptomatic of capitalism’s How to ensure higher profits? Clearly, advanced state of decay. So, the bourgeois solutions to the crisis, whether from the right (PLQ CAQ), or left (PQ2, QS), only 1 See the text of the Fraction of the temporarily defer a more violent crash to international communist left: come. Those on the right would cut all http://fractioncommuniste.org/ficci_eng/b42/b4 2_2.html spending, causing unemployment and Also the file « Economic Crisis» of stagnation, but promote established big Internationall Communist Current : http://en.internationalism.org/taxonomy/term/27 6 2 For a lot of petty bourgeois militants, the PQ Finally the texts of the Internationallist is neo-liberal up until one has to decide in an Communist Tendency, such as: election booth between the PLQ and the PQ. http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2011-08- The PQ quickly becomes less neo-liberal and 16/the-international-sovereign-debt-crisis respectable ... like magic. 5 business over the long term. The left would spending (social programs), in order to focus on state intervention for the welfare revive profits. Quebec is no exception. In of the nation, aggravating national debt its role as the Quebecois bourgeoisie’s while pretending to lead and pacify the "executive committee", all the Charest workers with promises that capitalism can government is asking is for students to still ensure them better days to come… tighten their belts, to "make an effort" to until the next elections, a change of power give capital some leeway, so that it can and new, even more drastic cuts resulting pull itself out of the current slump. from debt exacerbated by the capitalist left. But what does this "little effort" of 75% In short, the economic crisis is at the core increase represent for a large number of of an upsurge in class struggle on an students? First of all, this represents an international level. Let's look at what increase in debt, which on one hand happened in Quebec last spring. mortgages the lives of many young people for several years, and on the other leads to The struggle against tuition fees is part higher profits in bank capital on the backs of the struggle against capitalist attacks of these students. Secondly, the need to on our living conditions. take on menial jobs becomes more universal among students to make ends The tuition hikes announced for 2011 by meet. This is already a harsh reality for the Charest government, were hardly students from proletarian families. But surprising. Already, in 2005, the same now it also affects the middle classes and Charest had tried to cut student aid, the petty bourgeoisie. In short, students in causing one of the biggest student strikes general are becoming proletarianized. The to date. Charest ultimately backed down, student / worker is a boon for the but only to renew the attack two years bourgeoisie. He often works for minimum later, in 2007, announcing an increase of wage, or close to it, with flexible hours – a $50 per year for five years. The trick, a typical mainstay in the service industry, for ‘small’ increase over several years, was to example. ease that pill down students’ throats, which worked rather well, as such an increase It goes without saying that the 2012 strike was not likely to trigger massive was primarily a strike against the resistance. humiliation and sacrifice on the altar of capital. For most striking students living on With the five-year increase nearing its a tiny income, often having to bear the limit, Charest decided to defer this in stress caused by debt, constantly juggling announcing another tuition hike beginning between work and study… and for the in 2012. This time the pill was big – huge, capitalist state to say "make an effort, do in fact: a 75% hike over five years! Student your fair share ', was simply the last straw. reaction was swift this time. From late That, among other things, proletarianized winter to early spring, college and the students, giving the strike its massive university students went on a massive and radical political nature. strike. Student unionism It’s important to emphasize that the logic behind the tuition hikes is primarily one of This movement first began through the austerity. The basic principle of austerity “Coalition large de l’Association pour une measures employed throughout the world Solidarité syndicale (CLASSE)”. Its today is to impose cuts everywhere – in student union members went on strike first. private spending (wages) and in public Subsequently, the Quebec Federation of 6 College Students (FECQ) and its university organization of the student movement. counterpart, the Quebec Federation of Unlike the FECQ and FEUQ, CLASSE University Students (FEUQ) followed suit. advances a project for society. For several Although the movement was more or less years, it championed the principle of free prepared in advance by the student union education at all levels. These positions, in bureaucracy, in particular l‘ASSE, the addition to more combative tactics, as massive character of the movement compared with FECQ and FEUQ, ensure showed that it was, in fact, the student base that more students still have great "spontaneously" set in motion . confidence in CLASSE to represent their interests and to provide a tool for social Let’s take a closer look at the student transformation. unions. The FECQ-FEUQ represents the right-wing of the trade union movement, But what is the CLASS program other than an elite corporatist establishment that seeks the capitalist left adapted to students’ privileges for its members through realities? Indeed, it represents this rather government negotiation. They have a utopian, not to mention reactionary, history of frequent close relations with political current that aims to transform various governments and patronage of the neo-liberalism to "capitalism with a human Parti Québécois.