Impatience is at its height towards the union of engineers

After 10 government offers and now nearly 300 sites affected, the level of impatience of several ministers is at its height towards the union of engineers, which denies taking the road infrastructure hostage.

• Read also: Nearly 300 roadworks affected by engineers’ strike

As reported in our pages, on Wednesday, 278 road works had to be delayed, suspended, postponed or are at risk of being so due to the strike by 1,800 engineers from the Quebec state, which is due to resume on June 21.

The President of the Treasury Board Sonia LeBel, who told our Parliamentary Office that many of these delays “will not be recoverable”, added a layer of it when she arrived at the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers.

“We cannot accept, year after year, negotiation after negotiation, that the engineers take the worksites hostage! At some point, we will have to go to the end of the process, ”she hammered.

Asked whether the use of a special law to impose working conditions and put an end to the labor dispute was envisaged, “I’m not there”, first indicated Mr.^me LeBel to journalists, without ruling out this possibility.

Then, “we are not there at all and it is not in the plans”, she specified a little later, in a written statement sent to the Log.

Delays

“There will be delays, for sure. The majority of the sites should have started a few weeks ago, so we are asking the engineers to return to the negotiating table”, commented in turn the Minister of Transport, François Bonnardel.

The Minister for Transport, Chantal Rouleau, also deplored the impacts on several road construction sites in the Montreal region, for which she is responsible.

This is particularly the case for the work planned for the Ville-Marie and Viger tunnels in Montreal, as well as inside the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel.

“There have been many and many proposals that have been made by the government, underlined Mr.^me Roll. There, at some point you have to be consistent and realize that this type of gesture (the strike), well, it has impacts, obviously on the infrastructures, but (also) on the citizens. We have to come to some common ground.”

The union fights back

“It’s not me who is taking the infrastructure hostage,” defended the president of the Professional Association of Government Engineers of Quebec (APIGQ), Marc-André Martin, who accuses the government of having backed down on its own offers, since last May 31.

“They take the same handful of change, mix it up and put it back on the table,” illustrated the president of the union, who is calling for fairer treatment for all of its members in relation to market conditions.

Contrary to what Minister LeBel asserts, Mr. Martin considers that it is the government that lacks seriousness in its approach.

“They sent a new negotiator… He arrived, no pencil, no paper,” said the union leader.

“It’s not serious, wanted to react M^me LeBel. I can’t believe we’re talking about a forgotten pencil when there are important issues to be resolved. It would be more useful to come to the table and negotiate.”