La negociation collective du secteur de l'education: quel avenir pour le Front commun?

This study looks at the ability of union organizations to improve their members' working conditions in a context of economic austerity. To do so, we focus on the case of the 2014-2015 bargaining round in the Quebec public sector, and more specifically on bargaining in the PrimarySecondary Education sector. Proposing a multilevel and multidimensional analysis approach and mobilizing a qualitative design, we wish to initiate a reflection on the capacity of education sector unions to respond to precariousness in this sector. The position we put forward in this article is that unions have been unable to seize certain opportunities that would enable them to strengthen their bargaining power. Our main findings lead us to conclude that centralized structures did not serve the common front well during the 2015 negotiations; inter- and intra-organizational bargaining proved difficult and ineffective given the multiple realities and issues at stake and the government's highly centralized strategy. We also found that the precariousness experienced and perceived by members of the education sector is highly specific to the context and characteristics of the job; a specificity that seems more difficult to gain recognition for within centralized structures. Drawing on the "shadow unionism" thesis proposed by Desbiens (2020) and the union pragmatism of Lemieux (2021), we propose a series of ideas and courses of action to bring the different levels of union action closer together, and to tie union praxis more firmly to members' expectations.