(Quebec) The Union of Professionals of the Government of Quebec (SPGQ), which represents 24,000 public service workers, is requesting the intervention of a conciliator in the negotiations surrounding the renewal of its members’ collective agreement.
The SPGQ is one of the three major public sector union organizations that have still not settled with the Quebec government regarding the renewal of collective agreements, with the Public and Parapublic Service Union of Quebec and the Interprofessional Health Federation .
“The negotiations are not taking place at all in the same way as in the health and education sector,” lamented the president of the SPGQ, Guillaume Bouvrette, referring to public service workers, who include employees of different ministries and those of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ).
He said the union was assured that negotiations would be intensified, but was only offered half a day of negotiations in the next two weeks.
“We were made to wait, saying: wait for the result of the common front votes before (we make) more serious formal offers. And these results are known, and yet the offers do not come,” Mr. Bouvrette said in an interview.
Friday, the common front, which is made up of the APTS, the CSQ, the FTQ and the CSN, announced that its members accepted by 74.8% the agreement in principle which provided for salary increases of 17 .4% over five years, to which was added a protection clause against inflation, which could go up to 1% for the last three years of the collective agreement if inflation exceeds a certain threshold.
“The offer currently being made to state professionals is 12.7% over five years, so we easily understand that in this context, we cannot move the negotiations forward,” continued Mr. Bouvrette.
In addition to salaries, the SPGQ demands that accessibility to teleworking be set out in the collective agreement for public service workers.
“What we are asking is not to define all the modalities of application in the collective agreement, but it is at least to recognize that it is a way of working that exists, and to which professional staff have right,” detailed the president of the union.
The SPGQ still has a mandate in favor of pressure tactics, which can go as far as an unlimited general strike.
Its negotiating committee will meet with its authorities next week to take stock of the situation and “agree on the strategy to adopt”.
The Canadian Press contacted the office of Labor Minister Jean Boulet to find out if he would accept the request for a conciliator, but had not received a response as of Saturday afternoon.