Starting Monday and for five weeks, the approximately 420,000 workers represented by common front unions in the public sector are asked to vote on the agreement in principle that was reached regarding the renewal of their collective agreements.
Assemblies could be held until February 19, depending on the union, whether it is attached to the CSQ, the APTS, the FTQ or the CSN. Workers will then have the opportunity to obtain all the details and ask questions of their representatives, before making a decision.
A few days ago, the president of the FTQ, Magali Picard, said she was “very comfortable, very proud of what was negotiated” by the common front.
The president of the CSQ, Éric Gingras, was optimistic. “I have confidence in the members who will do the best reading. We think we’ll present something interesting. »
In an interview, the president of the Federation of Education Unions (FSE), Josée Scalabrini, admits that “the members are rather eager to have these agreements presented to them.” She also expects that there will be several assemblies over the next three weeks.
The FSE, affiliated with the CSQ, therefore part of the common front, only had to strike for eight days, in November and December, before coming to a proposed settlement, while the Autonomous Federation of the Education (FAE), independent, had to stop work for more than a month to achieve the same result.
Despite everything, Ms. Scalabrini refuses to blame the FAE for its strategy.
“I will never, ever allow myself to evaluate the strategy of another organization. But I think that the strategy that we used, according to what our members tell us and according to what I hear to date, was the right strategy: to work with all public service employees, that got us where it got us, with coordinated strike sequences. »
The contents
The agreement in principle concluded by the common front on December 28 provides for increases of at least 17.4% over five years.
More precisely, we are talking about a 6% increase from April 1, 2023, 2.8% on April 1, 2024, 2.6% on April 1, 2025, 2.5% on April 1, 2026, then 3.5% on April 1, 2027, in addition to an inflation protection clause for the last three years of the collective agreement.
It also provides for improvements to vacations and group insurance.
At the sectoral level, several health unions have already revealed the content of their agreement, even before rank-and-file members learn about it during assemblies.
For example: in health, unions have obtained bonus bonuses and overtime, in addition to being able to better participate in schedule management.