We are two directors of community mental health organizations established in Quebec for more than 30 years and two coordinators of groups of mental health and homelessness organizations in the City of Quebec, bringing together nearly sixty organizations, sound the alarm.
Posted at 4:00 p.m.
Our organizations contribute to social innovation through their alternative practices and the support given to people weakened by mental illness, poverty and exclusion. Since winter 2020, we have been going through the successive waves of COVID-19 by constantly adapting our services and activities with all the creativity that characterizes us. We also face, in the field, the disastrous consequences of the pandemic on the people we support: social isolation, impoverishment, disorganization and psychosocial crises, drug overdoses, violence, housing problems and residential instability, school dropouts, job losses, etc.
In short, this context, added to that of the chronic underfunding of our organizations, stifling accountability and the shortage of manpower, brings us close to disaster: the community planet is on the verge of extinction!
The majority of community workers are women (80%). The jobs of interveners, animators, managers, etc. in the community network are comparable to jobs in the health network. On the other hand, the differences in pay and working conditions are flagrant and clearly unfair! Many studies and representations have already been made by women’s groups on this issue. Recently, a movement of community workers, born in Quebec in 2022, #noussommeslepremierlien, demands a base salary of $25 an hour, at the entry level.
Indeed, according to data from the Sectoral Workforce Committee (CSMO), reported by the Alliance of Autonomous Community Action Workers (ATTACA) in 2019, tells us that the average salary in organizations was $18.54 per hour in Quebec in 2019, compared to the average hourly wage in Quebec during the same year, which was $24.94, a difference of $6.40. In short, community workers earn only 74% of the provincial average hourly wage and obviously the gap widens further when compared with salaries in the health network for comparable jobs.
It may well be that the perception of the community milieu, with a sort of rough-hewn Judeo-Christian overtone, ended up convincing the entire population, including those working in this sector, that working conditions matter little to him, and that compassion and vocation are enough.
It seems to us that the Quebec state, regardless of the successive governments, has never demonstrated its willingness to offer an equitable funding framework to our organizations.
A framework that provides access to competitive wages and benefits such as group insurance and pension plans for thousands of workers in the nonprofit sector. We believe that if the salaries of our staff are not readjusted quickly, the survival of our organizations is clearly compromised. The scarcity of labour, galloping inflation and the hiring of our employees by the public health network and other institutions offering better conditions, could give our organizations the deathblow.
We are convinced that the practices of community organizations in mental health and other sectors such as homelessness make Quebec a distinct society. Community mental health organizations, an integral part of what remains of the first line of health care (very roughed up by the latest reforms of the health network) must be considered and participate in decisions surrounding the overhaul of the health system.
The political parties in power over the past few decades have never recognized the community environment at its fair value. It is unreasonable to underpay players in a sector of the economy which, while contributing to helping the worst off in society, creates jobs and wealth. We are at the time of political choices. In the end, if the political class in general seems rather indifferent to the conditions of exercise of community work, we ask for the support of the population so as not to let the community environment, the flagship of Quebec society, die!
After readjusting the salaries of daycare attendants and technicians and other employees of the public network, the time has come to offer all the “guardian angels” of the community sector, and in particular mental health and homelessness, decent working conditions, before their disappearance multiplies by four the costs to replace it!
* Co-signatories: Francine Cyr, director of the Pavois; Charles Rice, Director of Action in Mental Health; Mélanie Gravel, coordinator of the Regroupement pour l’aide aux homeless people in Quebec (RAIIQ)