i Le sduladh | By MEL DOIG It’s still too early to assess completely the significance of the return to work on schedule of Quebec’s 70,000 teachers. Shortly before school reopen- ing the three teachers’ unions agreed in principle with the main terms of the first province-wide agreement, urging their mem- bers at the same time to com- mence their teaching. But this much is clear — the Quebec government has prevail- ed in winning this “agreement in principle” for its position that the agreement had to be prov- ince-wide and standardized for ‘all teachers. “The agreement is a surrender,” was the opinion of Matthias Rioux, one of the vice-presidents of the Corpora- tion of Quebec Teachers (62,000 members) and also president of the Montreal Teachers Alliance of 9,000 Catholic School Com- mission French-Canadian teach- ers. Quebec teachers havé been struggling against the govern- ment and Quebec school boards’ associations for two years to gain a new contract. They’ve returned to work this fall with- out it. The proposed contract, . for a three year period retro- It is not only the ghetto mother and housewife, but the working woman, as well who faces a critical problem in try- ing to keep the family together. Until such time as there is a real breakthrough in male su- premacist practises by individu- al men, and until the govern- ment is forced to provide child- care facilities on the massive scale required, the woman who works in the shop or office re- mains saddled with the house- hold chores and major respon- ~ sibility for the care of the chil- dren. Here is the responsibility for finding a neighbor or a friend to take care of the baby all day, or keep an eye on the youngster after school . . . Most fathers consider this “women’s work.” Here is the job of shop- ping for groceries on the way home and getting dinner on the table, serving and tidying up afterwards. The week-end is for the main shopp‘ng, ironing, washing, house-cleaning, etc. And that’s on top of 40 plus hours a week in the shop or Office. There are some _ progressive families where the light is be- ginning to dawn, where men are beginning to recognize at least the injustice, if not yet the stupidity, of the daily, hour- ly sacrifice imposed on women. Some men are starting to take a hand. in‘ essential family re- sponsibilities. But in the major- ity of cases, the old. pattern still prevails. The man retires to his TV. or paper and slip- Se Some of the forward-looking unions are taking steps, organ- izing classes for their new wo- men members... But’ much more _ necessary than education for women is education for men in the unions . men in the trade unions PACIRIG TRIBUNE—SERTEMBER.12,.1969;3PAGE 8. _ active from September 1968 to 1971, remains unsigned by the six contractual parties involved. Its terms have not been an- nounced, although the CQT pre- sident, Raymond Laliberté has said that 62. of the 65 associa- ticns of the CQT voted 88.6 per- cent in favor of it. The most critical of the out- standing issues concerns 330 teachers whom the school boards are refusing to re-employ. These teachers were among those hand- ing in their resignation after this year’s school closing. Neither the teachers’ union (the CQT and the smaller English - speaking Protestant and Catholic teachers unions) nor the school boards have given the precise number of resignations, variously estim- ated at between 12,000 and 16,000. Matthias Rioux has stat- ed, “This is a grave time we’re going through. It was we who persuaded these teachers to re- sign. We must do everything we -possibly can to see that they are re-engaged.” What’s happened to the teach- ers’ militancy, expressed in these mass resignations, as well as in many other actions over the last two years since the Union Nationale government forced the teachers by 1967 le- must learn that a good brother in the union is a good father and husband at home. And that means not only helping with home chores but exchang- ing and sharing all experiences — domestic, . social, political, union — as equals. e 2 What is needed is a nation- wide network of nurseries equipped to take care of in- fants .. . and child-care centres equipped to provide recreation for .youngsters after school hours . . . Certainly the richest country in the world can afford this. But it will take a gigantic popular drive to pry the neces- sary funds loose from the purse of the war-bent monopolies. The “pillars of society,” the spokesmen of the monopoly es- tablishment . support the family in pious words but un- dermine it in deeds. From a totally different direc- tion comes an ideological at- tack against the very concept of the family. The faminists, un- derstandably goaded and frus- trated by the inferior status im- posed upon women. . . have pounced upon marriage and the family as obstacles in the path to women’s liberation . . The family today has in gene- ral the same form and, at least in middle-class and well-to-do circles, serves the same econo- mic purpose of maintaining the accepted order of property rela- tions. The man dominates and the woman’s role is one of obe- dience and accommodation to the. mano. < On the face of it, then, it would seem that the ancient op- pressive institution of the fami- ly should be tossed onto the rubbish heap of history. But let’s get below the surface and see what has happened to marriage and the family . . . = gislation to end their strike of that year? There’s no doubt the support given early this summer by Ray- mond Laliberté and other CQT leaders to proposals for unilin- gual education in Quebec dam- aged the unity of the teachers. Faced with the mass resigna- tions of teachers whose unity was already wavering, the Que- bec government and the school boards’ associations introduced a tactic to further divide them. Agreements were signed with individual teachers, at first with a few and then with thousands. These were individual undertak- ings by, teachers to return to work, accepting in advance the terms of a future contract. This tactic was successful enough to collapse the “CQT stand that schools would not reopen on time this fall. Laliberté has reported that 67 percent of the CQT teachers have given their union’s leaders a strike mandate, in support of the demand that the 330 unhired teachers be re-employed as well as further demands affecting re- troactivity. At this time, however,. there is an air of uncertainty about any militant actions by Quebe’s - teachers in the near future. Woman as an equal partner Among the common people— and they are the vast majority —throughout the centuries of recorded history, and certainly in capitalist countries today, the relationship of men to wo- men is no longer that of mast- ers to slaves. It is rather that of partners in misery .. . Just when and how love en- tered the marriage scene among the common people we may never know. But we do know that love did develop as. the chief basis for marriage among the propertyless classes. More than that, the sanctity of mar- riage became a_ revolutionary force . . . Still she continued to carry the mark and burdens of slavery. She inherited from all past generations, the wearing, endless chores of household work and the physical care of the children’s daily and hourly needs . . . even when women share in earning a livelihood for the family, they still carry the major burden of getting the housework done! Woman’s oppression in mar- riage is not inherent in the mod- ern concept of the family. It can be totally eliminated once the economic basis of oppres- sion is removed and once peo- ple’s minds are rescued from ruling-class brainwashing . . . the status of wife and mother can change from that of house- hold drudge and second-class citizen to equal partner in the home, at work, in all aspects of social and political life.. Marriage and the family are far from obsolete. These insti- tutions are still in the process of dynamic development. This means that a fight is still need- ed to achieve their full es- VIS) ele