Halfway through the period of strike votes in the public sector, the trend is confirmed: common front union members are very strongly in favor of an unlimited strike mandate.
In some unions, the vote is even unanimous in favor of the strike mandate.
The four unions which form the common front, namely the APTS, the CSN, the FTQ and the CSQ, are requesting from their 420,000 members a mandate for a general and unlimited strike, which would be preceded by strike days, isolated or grouped together.
The four common front organizations are holding general meetings of their member unions from September 18 to October 13; So we are halfway through.
CSQ
At the CSQ, which represents the majority of primary and secondary teachers in Quebec, in addition to education professionals and support employees, also at the college level, around fifty unions have held their assembly to date.
Support for the strike mandate is generally over 90%, in many cases over 95%.
In Outaouais, three of the four units of education professionals — speech therapists, psychoeducators, for example — voted 100% for the strike and the other unit voted 98.5%. The lowest support rate is that of school professionals in Rivière-du-Loup, at 83%.
“When we say that workers’ expectations are high, the results that come in confirm what we hear from the field. They say to themselves that this is really where it is happening and they massively support the strategy proposed to them,” commented the president of the CSQ, Éric Gingras.
CSN
At the CSN, which notably represents thousands of beneficiary attendants, in addition to support employees in the health and education networks, around fifty meetings had been held so far. Support for the strike mandate there averaged 92.6%.
“Such high figures, with such high levels of participation, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that. This is certainly symptomatic of the state of mind of our members. They have nothing to lose; they are angry and they want to go all the way,” commented the vice-president of the CSN, François Énault, responsible for public sector negotiations for this union center.
APTS
On the side of the Alliance of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services (APTS), whose members work in health establishments and for social services — physiotherapist, psychoeducator, radio-oncology technologist, medical technologist, dietitian-nutritionist, for example — the support is just as strong.
In Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean: 97% support; on the North Shore: 97.9%; in Abitibi-Témiscamingue: 89.3%; in Côte-Nord laboratories: 100%; Abitibi-Témiscamingue laboratories: 96.4%.
“These are very strong strike mandates given to us by our members; This may not be a surprise, but an average of 96.7% strikes the imagination. What I see every day on the ground, what our locally elected people at the APTS have been seeing for months, is the fed up of employees,” commented the president of the APTS, Robert Comeau. .
FTQ
On the side of the FTQ, which also represents thousands of beneficiary attendants and support employees in health and education, in particular, approximately a quarter of the local sections had held their meeting. “The vote is more than 95%,” it was reported. The health sector will mainly hold its meetings starting next week
“This 95% and more clearly demonstrates the anger of our members in the face of the government’s insulting and arrogant offers of 9% over five years. Currently, billions of dollars in subsidies are pouring into Quebec under the pretext of creating exciting and paying jobs, to quote Prime Minister Legault. Well yes, the jobs in our world are exciting, but not paying, and above all not stimulating” in current conditions, commented in turn the president of the FTQ, Magali Picard.