Nurses are worried about being forced to work in another hospital without notice and refuse to give “carte blanche” to the government in its new reform, the repercussions of which are still “fuzzy”.
• Read also: Nurses say “NO” to the agreement in principle
Members of the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ) rejected the employer’s offer of a new collective agreement by 61%, the union announced on Saturday, after more than a year of negotiations. On social networks, many nurses deplore the vagueness that persists regarding the “flexibility” required by the government.
“We are so uncertain that people have said: we are not giving that card. At the end of the day, it’s true that it’s vague. It’s hypothetical,” underlines Brigitte Petrie, president of the local nurses’ union at the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of Montérégie-Est. It’s carte blanche that people don’t want to give,” she adds.
Courtesy Brigitte Petrie
This morning, the management of the FIQ refused to reveal to Newspaper the precise reasons which caused the agreement to fail since it must first consult its members.
- Listen to FIQ vice-president Jérôme Rousseau discuss the agreement refused by the members via QUB :
Why did the members of the FIQ reject the offer?
With the creation of the Agence Santé Québec, new activity centers will be created and could bring together hospitals or accommodation centers. A nurse may be required to change establishment without notice, depending on needs. She may also have to change departments, which raises questions about training and quality of care.
In the Montreal region, the travel radius is 25 km. In the region, the limit is set at 35 km. However, the transfer arrangements remain unclear for many nurses.
“The majority, [ce] are women, mothers. Suddenly if you change location, it ruins your personal life. […] “everything is shaken up,” explains a respiratory therapist from the McGill University Health Center.
“It’s worrying, we don’t want to end up going to work in Montreal. They don’t want to have traffic to go to work,” summarizes Julie Daigneault, president of the local Laurentides nurses’ union.
MARTIN ALARIE / JOURNAL DE MONTREAL
In Mauricie, the merger of departments has caused a lot of discontent over the past year. Several nurses even resigned.
What is happening at the FIQ?
Internal discontent is intensifying against the union’s senior management. A petition demanding the resignation of the president of the FIQ, Julie Bouchard, was filed on Saturday. Nearly 300 members signed it.
Screenshot taken from Facebook
Here are some comments submitted by signatories:
“She doesn’t understand the needs of the members”
“Because I have the bitter feeling of being poorly represented”
“My future as a nurse is at stake if this doesn’t change”
What is the next step?
THE FIQ will have to meet with its union authorities before deciding on the continuation of the negotiations. The union clarified that everything is not starting from scratch and that points of contention will have to be identified.
According to a labor relations specialist, flexibility needs to be better defined.
“If we do not give a guarantee, the nurse takes it into account when voting,” analyzes Jean-Claude Bernatchez, professor at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières. Conditions of passage must be established. […] We didn’t leave the inn.”
The FIQ represents approximately 80,000 members (nurses, practical nurses, respiratory therapists, perfusionists).