François Hénault of the CSN, left, responds to questions at a news conference Dec. 20, in Quebec City. Union leaders of the public sector 'common front' are negotiating with the government for new contracts. From left, Hénault, Éric Gingras of the CSQ, Magali Picard of the FTQ and Robert Comeau of the APTS.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
Unions representing hundreds of thousands of Quebec public sector workers have threatened to start an open-ended strike in early 2024 if no deal is reached with the government before the new year.
In a news conference Wednesday, leaders of a group of four unions dubbed “the common front” called on Premier François Legault’s government to ramp up negotiations to avoid another walkout.
Members of the CSQ, CSN, APTS and FTQ unions – 420,000 workers that include teachers, education support staff, lab technicians and many others – have already held 11 days of strike action in November and December in an escalating labour conflict that has shut down schools and delayed health care procedures.
“We want to reach a deal before the holidays, but if not the message is that winter 2024 is going to be quite difficult for the Premier,” said François Enault, first vice-president of the CSN at the news conference. “The latest polls show that the more we go on strike, the more the population supports us.”
Union leaders declined to say when exactly an open-ended strike would start.
Mr. Enault said that for unions to accept a wage offer, it must be tied to inflation to ensure workers don’t lose purchasing power, and it must provide for what he called a “pay catch-up” for some members, so that their salary is more in line with industry standards. Union leaders have repeatedly denounced the fact that plumbers, for example, make less money in the public sector than in private enterprise, which they say exacerbates worker shortages.
Josée Scalabrini, the president of the CSQ-affiliated Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement (FSE-CSQ), the province’s most important teachers’ union with 95,000 members, said the latest government offer was a smokescreen.
Her assessment was at odds with what Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville said Tuesday about the offer, made earlier that day. “We are putting a lot of things on the table,” Mr. Drainville said during an unrelated event. “There are really important improvements and we hope that this will pave the way for an agreement.” No details about the offer were made public.
In a video posted on social media Tuesday night, Ms. Scalabrini said: “We have major setbacks: all the priorities of the government, nothing significant on classroom makeup and on workload reduction.” The union has been asking for fewer working hours and smaller classes, among other things.
Another teachers’ union, the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE), which represents more than 66,000 teachers on an open-ended strike since Nov. 23, said in a statement on social media Wednesday that it was still looking at the most recent offer.
Caught in the middle are parents such as Aglaée Daudelin, who is worried about the prospect of more strike days in the coming year. She and her partner have four children aged three to seven between them. All of the kids have been affected by the common front’s fall job action.
“Our oldest has severe learning difficulties,” Ms. Daudelin said, adding that losing school days has been detrimental to his routine. “We think he might have to redo his school year because of this.”
Having the children at home, instead of in school or daycare, has also been challenging, said Ms. Daudelin, who lives in Montreal. She and her partner don’t have the means to hire a babysitter full-time, she said, and they had to alternate between missing workdays and taking late night or weekend shifts to make sure at least one parent was always home.
Nonetheless, Ms. Daudelin supports striking teachers. “I wouldn’t want it to end without them gaining at least part of what they ask for,” she said, blaming the government for the lack of progress at the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, 80,000 nurses and other health care professionals represented by the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) announced Tuesday that they requested the appointment of a mediator because of the slow progress and “total lack of openness to compromise on the part of the government.”
Marylène Le Houillier, a spokesperson for Treasury Board Chair Sonia LeBel, said the government’s objective was to reach an agreement before Christmas, but declined to comment further on Wednesday.
The last proposal made public by the government, in early December, provided for a 12.7-per-cent pay increase over five years, up from an offer of a 10.3-per-cent increase in October. It was rejected by all unions.