The 1967 strike

Lucien Rolland is seated facing the camera. 

In 1967, all my competitors ran their plants seven days a week, but in Saint-Jérôme and Mont-Rolland, it was six days a week. That meant 16% lower capacity than the competition. It was impossible to survive that way. But I pushed the union enough that they went on strike so they wouldn’t have to work Sundays.

At the time I was Governor of the Université de Montréal. Bernard Landry and his friend Marois came to me and said: ‘You have workers striking in Saint-Jérôme over work on Sundays. You should have work on Sundays. If you like, we’ll go talk to your employees in Saint-Jérôme and try to settle this strike.’ I said to Landry: ‘Thank you, my good man. I’ll settle it myself!’ And I did settle it, in fact. But I called on Laurent Picard, who was a Harvard graduate and a master at fixing labour problems. I asked him: ‘Start investigating, in Saint-Jérôme and Mont-Rolland, and find out why they’re on strike.’ And he reported back that the employees thought Lucien Rolland was practically the Lord Jesus and he could easily handle the competition, even at 16% less capacity. That was his report!

Now, why they took me for Jesus, I couldn’t tell you. But I normally got on extremely well with them. I knew them. I’d go to their Christmas parties, with a band playing, and dancing till the wee hours. But I put myself in their shoes, and I knew them.
The truth is, I got along very well with them.