Can you believe that nearly 50,000 Quebec families risk finding themselves in a famous mess next week because of a trifle?
There remains only $ 6 million of difference between the requests of the workers of the early childhood centers (CPE) and the Quebec proposal, which is very little compared to the 140 million already offered.
You might think that we are a hair’s breadth away from getting along. And yet the conflict has only worsened this week.
Members of two of the three unions have voted over 90% in favor of an indefinite strike that could begin as early as next Wednesday.
For her part, the head of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, brandished the threat of a special law to end the conflict.
Please put these nuclear weapons away. Let us think for a moment of the families who are stuck in the heart of this conflict. Let us remember that parents of young children were particularly hard hit during the pandemic.
Working from home while taking care of young children during confinement is exhausting.
Running to get tested for even the slightest runny nose – God knows it often happens when toddlers take their first steps in daycare – it puts your nerves in a ball.
Staying in quarantine with the kids when an outbreak occurs, it turns a work schedule upside down.
On the eve of the holidays, the last thing families need is an indefinite daycare strike.
Quebec and the unions must come to an agreement. And quick !
In fact, we are very close to a handshake.
The case is not bad in the pocket for the wages of the educators. Quebec offers specialized educators an increase of 13% at the first level and 19% at the last, over three years.
The union party demands 20% from the first levels, so that the profession attracts the next generation which is crumbling dangerously. The number of graduates in early childhood education techniques plunged 23% last year.
But this request would be expensive – about $ 200 million per year – and the unions admit that the catch-up already promised by Quebec – which would increase the maximum salary from about $ 45,800 to $ 54,600 per year – is a decent offer.
If the educators continue to fight, it is for the other trades, a solidarity which is to their credit since their stripped fund will not pay them much in exchange for their hours of picketing in the cold and in the cold. the rain.
But the unions do not want to give up the game, knowing that they will not soon find such a favorable context to negotiate a catch-up for the support employees of the childcare centers.
Take the pedagogical support agents. With the increase of only 6% offered to them by the government, they will find themselves with lower salaries than educators, which is absurd given their tasks.
Take other trades, such as food managers who are offered a 9% increase. For Quebec, it is a question of fairness towards the other low wage earners of the public service to whom one offered more or less the same thing.
It is understandable that Quebec has favored certain trades, such as nurses, orderlies, teachers and educators, all female professions that urgently needed remedial work.
This differentiated approach makes sense.
And we realize that the government cannot be so generous with the entire public service. Except that if the CAQ really wants to be fair, it must realize that support employees in childcare centers are paid much less than employees who occupy an equivalent position elsewhere in the public network.
For example, food managers have an hourly rate of $ 20.67 at the bottom line. Quebec’s offer would take them to $ 22.59, which remains well below the rate of $ 26.57 in the rest of the public network. Unions would be happy at $ 23.72, up 15% instead of 9%.
Through this string of figures, we see that there is only a single dollar difference between Quebec’s supply and union demand.
All in all, we are stubbornly insisting on a fairly insignificant amount that applies to a limited number of employees, since the CPEs have only 3,200 support employees.
At the end of the day, the difference is only $ 6 million a year.
All this while Ottawa has pledged to pay $ 6 billion over five years to Quebec as part of the deployment of its national daycare program. While the province’s deficit is half as high as expected, thanks to the exceptional rebound in the Quebec economy.
Both a strike and a special law may discourage workers in childcare centers. Already, the lack of staff is causing service disruptions and closures that prevent parents from going to work.
With the labor shortage raging, now is not the time to make the situation worse.
Quebec and the unions are doomed to come to an agreement.
What do you think? Express your opinion