about
UNION THUGS SAY:
Original song written, composed and performed by Jacques Brunet, Les piqueteurs de la gloire was written in 1977 in support of Quebec strikers of Radio-Mutuel. With positions in more than 5 municipalities, Radio Mutuel is the oldest and one of the largest private radio networks in Quebec. However, it is time for the employees of the network to protest and employers must, over time, face 18 attempts at unionization. In the 1970s, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) made a breakthrough at a Quebec City station, while the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) succeeded in gaining a foothold in the parliamentary courier, as well as in the Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City.
Workers seek to improve their working conditions, but also to promote professional autonomy and freedom of speech. In front of an administration that turned a deaf ear, on January 26, 1977 CSN unions went on strike, joined March 28 by CUPE, forming a common front in the information industry. The strike will last until October 1978.
Scabs will be hired, lists of activists will be set up, police raids will take place at the offices of local union centers and unions, but also directly at some elected officials’ homes. Official documents and information are confiscated by police and unions will learn that their members have been wiretapped for 3 years! The unions are still going, many events are organized, information is produced and of course, the album Les Piqueteurs de la gloire is recorded.
Recorded without a label, the song resurfaced in 1982 for the leaflet Chansons de luttes et turlutes, the newspaper News-CSN May 1, then seems to disappear from the map. We introduce you to the song with a feminized text. If we originally sang alternately piqueteurs / piqueteuses, a couplet on two, in the summer of 2018, during a concert that we gave for the training camp of SITT-IWW Montreal, the women present took the front and decided to use piqueteuses for the whole song and thus feminize the entire song. The practice has remained ever since.
lyrics
LYRICS
REFRAIN :
Il était une fois,
Comme dans n’importe quelle histoire,
D’un côté les hommes de loi,
Et de l’autre, les piqueteuses de la gloire.
Laï, Laï, Laï
Nous étions de celles qui marchent,
Pour prouver qu’on se tient debout,
Malgré le froid et les sarcasmes,
On était riches sans un sou,
On était riches sans un sou.
[REFRAIN]
L’hiver est long au Canada,
Mais la chaleur qui nous anime,
Est celle qu’attise le combat,
De vouloir combler cet abîme,
Qui nous sépare des faux rois.
[REFRAIN]
Et de faire sauter leurs palais,
Et puis qu’ils rampent comme des rats,
D’avoir osé nous mépriser,
Ils sont souris, nous sommes chats,
Et notre chasse est liberté.
[REFRAIN]
Crois en la force des travailleurs,
Ces anonymes cachés dans l’ombre,
Leur voix est celle qui vient du coeur,
Ils se relèvent des décombres,
Et ils construisent en s’unissant,
Une vie nouvelle qui est à eux.
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