The Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec (FIQ) refuses to take the blame for the laborious departure of the flying team and the postponement of the date of abolition of the independent workforce in several regions of Quebec. The FIQ is “not responsible for all the ills of the health network,” insists its president.
Health Minister Christian Dubé announced Thursday that he was pushing back from October 20 to March 31 the end of private personnel placement agencies in health establishments in Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches.
Speaking to Patrick Lagacé on 98.5 Friday morning, Christian Dubé indicated that several reasons had pushed him to delay the October 20 deadline, “among others the finalization of collective agreements.” The day before on the show The Joust On TVA, he said he found it “deplorable” that the FIQ had “asked to end the agencies two years ago” and was “not here today.” The union, which represents 95% of healthcare professionals in the public network, has not reached an agreement with Quebec regarding the flying team.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
FIQ President Julie Bouchard
“To make us bear the odium that the flying teams are not working because of the FIQ, I mean, that is a failure of the government,” says its president Julie Bouchard. “It is not because of the FIQ that interviews are still taking place and that the bureaucracy makes it so complicated.”
According to the president of the FIQ, the flying team lacks attractiveness. “I am told ‘it’s not for $100 more [par jour] that I will leave my family nest to go and help out.”
She says her union “knocked on the government’s door” to negotiate the flying squad as part of a comprehensive tentative agreement. “We were told ‘no,'” she says.
Wouldn’t a specific agreement on the flying team have been possible? “At some point, we are asked to make an agreement for this matter, another agreement for another problem, another agreement for another problem, while the central issue remains the same: we are without an employment contract and if we start making agreements on everything, we will be without an employment contract for a very long time,” says Julie Bouchard.
The FIQ president assures that her negotiators were ready to negotiate “every day” during the summer. “There were a few negotiation sessions during the summer period, but from maybe the beginning of August, we were at an impasse,” she says.
The government side indicates that no negotiation session has taken place at the table since the beginning of July. However, informal discussions have taken place. “Unfortunately, the FIQ has not been as available as we would have liked,” says the office of the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel. “However, we wish to continue discussions with the FIQ and it is our intention to propose a meeting with them.”
The FIQ already announced, about ten days ago, that it planned to increase its pressure tactics in the coming weeks. The parties do not agree on the issue of the mobility of nurses between care units and facilities.