The FIQ delegates have just officially rejected the government offer that was tabled in mid-December as part of the collective agreement renewal process.
These 350 delegates, meeting in the extraordinary national negotiation council, in Saint-Hyacinthe, represent both the members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé (FIQ) and the FIQP (for the private sector), i.e. the vast majority of nurses, nurses auxiliaries and other care professionals.
The first negotiation meeting between Quebec and the FIQ will take place on January 27.
It promises to be tough, given the gap between the parties in terms of salary and the fed up of nurses, whose expectations are very high in terms of workload, work-family balance and overtime. mandatory.
Regarding compensation, Quebec is offering 9% increases over five years, plus a lump sum of $1,000 and an amount equivalent to 2.5% reserved for “government priorities” – which makes it evaluate its offer at 13%.
But the delegates qualify this offer as disconnected, disrespectful, insulting in a context where, according to them, “the system is collapsing”.
Exhaustion and disgust were felt this week, when nurses at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont threatened to resign en bloc, provoking a crisis that led to the intervention of the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dube.
“He has been repeating for several weeks that he is aware of the extreme fragility of the network, of the pressure put on the healthcare professionals, among other things with the compulsory overtime, and that he wants the negotiations to produce satisfactory results. It is clear that this enthusiasm has not translated into the government’s offers” to renew the collective agreements, criticized the president of the FIQ, Julie Bouchard.
Moreover, the nurses of Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont received a special tribute, that of the 1,200 delegates from the Fédération des Travaileuses et des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ) gathered at a convention in Montreal, even if the FIQ does not not part of the inter-union common front.
It was the blue-collar union of the city of Montreal (local section 301 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees) who welcomed their mobilization at the microphone and asked the FTQ to honor them with a “solidarity motion”.
Spontaneously, the delegates stood up and applauded them for a long time, as a sign of solidarity.