(Montreal) The three largest labor centers in Quebec announced Sunday morning the creation of a common front for the negotiations of collective agreements in the public sector of 2023.
Posted at 11:53 a.m.
The alliance between the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), the Quebec Federation of Labor (FTQ) and the Central Trade Unions of Quebec (CSQ) will include coordination of their demands at the bargaining table and an agreement not to – raiding between different organizations.
PHOTO GRAHAM HUGHES, THE CANADIAN PRESS
“The message we want to send today is that we are together,” said CSQ president Éric Gingras at a press conference in Montreal.
He hopes that the common front can “avoid the psychodrama of negotiations in Quebec and not wait two years to settle collective agreements”.
The last public sector agreements ― some of which have just been adopted and others are still pending ― will expire in a year, on March 31, 2023. But unions must by law file their demands before the end of the contract. next October.
Said demands will be fine-tuned in the coming months, but CSN vice-president François Enault warned that “with current inflation, our expectations will be accordingly”.
“The pandemic has demonstrated the importance of public services, but also their fragility,” he argued, arguing that better wages and working conditions would help counter the shortage of workers in critical jobs.
The representatives of the common front said they were open to the addition of independent unions to their coalition.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.