The government, its representatives and legal aid lawyers are still unable to agree on the salaries of the latter. Faced with the failure of the brief round of negotiations conducted this week, new strike mandates were voted on Friday.
In the morning, some twenty lawyers from Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gaspésie and Îles-de-la-Madeleine unanimously adopted a new seven-day strike mandate, the Confederation of National Trade Unions reported. (CSN) which represents them.
A movement which could be followed, during the next days, by other votes in Montreal, Laval, in the Laurentians and Lanaudière, warns the union which represents approximately half of the 400 lawyers of the legal aid of Quebec.
Parity with Crown prosecutors
The CSN does not want to specify for the moment what means of pressure will be exercised, nor when. But she indicates that it would be “immediately”. The last time, the lawyers were absent in the mornings.
Without an employment contract since December 31, 2019, legal aid lawyers are demanding the same salary increases as those granted by the government to Crown prosecutors (+ 10% over 4 years).
However, the Treasury Board instead offered them a 6% increase over three years, comparable to that obtained by public sector employees.
The new strike mandates are aimed at denouncing the failure of the express round of negotiations held earlier this week at the Commission des services juridiques (CSJ).
The CSJ is the organization that represents the Treasury Board in its negotiations with lawyers. Invited to comment on the current state of the negotiations, the spokesperson for the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, said that she could not do so because she was not negotiating “directly” with the union members in this file.
“We obviously want an agreement to be reached as soon as possible,” she added.