Care professionals are waiting for payments of up to $40,000 due to delays caused by logistical problems at the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS).
The department’s logistical problems, on which Le Devoir had lifted the veil in November, affect the payment of retroactive amounts, bonuses, but also the application of an agreement on pay equity signed in July.
“For audiologists and speech therapists, the pay equity agreement provides feedback over 11 years, with interest at the legal rate of 5%,” illustrated Thursday the first vice-president of the Fédération des professionnèles (FP- CSN), Jessica Goldschleger, in an interview with The duty. “People did their calculations by hand.”
Ms. Goldschleger hopes that the government will commit to resolving this issue quickly, because of the sums at stake. “It’s taking too long. These are exorbitant sums”, she underlines.
She adds that Quebec has promised that late payments will be a thing of the past at the end of the quarter and therefore, at the end of March. “But it is sure that it creates a lot of frustration. […] Of course, we are in a difficult moment. There is a lot of frustration. We didn’t need that anymore.”
A social media campaign
For its part, the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) this week launched the campaign “Mobilized to be paid” to increase the pressure on Quebec so that it resolves the delays in payment that affect healthcare professionals throughout the network.
In November, the MSSS said that a “major workload, both for health establishments and for payroll processing firms” prevented Quebec from paying a series of retroactive amounts for the years 2019-2020. Employees of the health network were then advised that the establishments would be unable to “respect certain deadlines for the payment of retroactivity” provided for in the most recent collective agreements.
On social networks, healthcare professionals publish photos on which they hold up posters showing the amounts of money they expect from their employers. Most amounts total thousands of dollars.