While some welcome the acceptance of the agreement of the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) announced on Friday, teachers fear that it will resolve neither the staff shortage nor the problems plaguing schools.
The agreement in principle concluded between Quebec and the FAE was finally adopted on Friday thanks to the 50.58% vote of support from the last union called to vote.
“I think it’s good news,” said former CSN union leader Jacques Létourneau.
“If they rejected the agreement, they would have to restart negotiations, and that placed them in a situation where there was almost no balance of power left to try to improve the sectoral agreement. » The FAE would perhaps have been able to slightly improve working conditions, “but the agreement would not have been fundamentally different”, he thinks.
Jacques Létourneau believes, however, that the close vote for the agreement sends a message to the government.
This shows that it is not enough. Teachers are at their wits’ end. Expectations were very high, but it was certain that negotiation was not going to resolve everything either.
Jacques Létourneau, former president of the CSN
He is hopeful that the dialogue between the government and the unions will not be broken. “We have to figure out how to attract workers, keep staff and resolve class composition issues,” he explains.
A “hugely disappointing” sectoral agreement
Many teachers, however, express their disappointment. ” I’m disappointed. This agreement will not improve the shortage and poor conditions in schools,” says secondary school teacher Jean-Sébastien Draws, who is now considering going to teach in the private sector.
He considers the intersectoral part, namely salary and retirement, suitable, but finds the sectoral part “hugely disappointing”. “There is nothing in the agreement that will change things. It will have been 22 days wasted,” he said, referring to the indefinite general strike that took place in November and December.
“I am ashamed of my federation. My federation has always said that it would never sign a cheap agreement. That’s what was done,” says primary school special education teacher Francis-Germain Jannard. He is also sad to note that several of his colleagues did not take part in the vote.
The teacher from Basses-Laurentides would have liked better measures affecting the composition of the class. “We welcome students with very specific needs into our classes who could have been sent to other, much more suitable classes. »
“Votes in the middle of the night”
“One thing is certain, the FAE must review the way it carries out its consultations,” says Jacques Létourneau. It’s certain that with an assembly that ends at 2 a.m., half of them are asleep behind their screen. There is something not working. »
This is the opposite of what we ask of our students. Doing evaluations at the end of the day should be avoided. So for us too, making an informed choice at the start of the night is not very human.
Caroline, a high school teacher who preferred to keep her last name silent so as not to suffer reprisals
“The union structure must be modernized,” also believes Manon Bélisle, a preschool teacher for 36 years. “Votes in the middle of the night keep only the most convinced and infringe on the voting rights of members who have parental responsibilities or a very demanding and hot group of students. Teaching the day after a sleepless night is very difficult, sometimes even dangerous. »
She would also have liked the members to be the first to receive the agreement before the information circulated in the media and for the FAE to broadcast uniform presentation videos for the nine unions.