It’s (re)starting rather badly in the negotiations with the nurses.
The FIQ is disappointed with the new offer from Quebec tabled on Thursday. The union believes that this offer represents a “significant step backwards” on mobility and flexibility issues compared to the spring agreement last spring, which was rejected by 61% of nurses. Mobility and flexibility are the main (if not the only) issue to be resolved at this stage between the two parties. “It’s even more mobility that is being asked of us, even more flexibility,” said Julie Bouchard, president of the FIQ, in an interview with my colleague Marie-Eve Cousineau.
The Legault government is playing for time. It is holding a hard line, hoping that FIQ nurses will end up accepting an agreement similar to the one rejected this spring with salary increases of at least 17.4% over five years. That’s my impression, but the coming weeks and months will tell us with more certainty.
In any case, regardless of what one thinks about the substance of the flexibility issues (I think that flexibility in the health network needs to be greatly improved), the new offer can hardly be described as a rapprochement. This offer has distanced the two parties instead of bringing them closer together. I am not saying that the FIQ is right or that the Legault government is wrong. I am simply saying that this is not the type of offer that we make if we want to get closer to the other party to settle in the short term.
The main reason why FIQ nurses have still not signed a new collective agreement, unlike other government employees: the two parties do not agree on the Quebec government’s demands for flexibility. I summarize the issues of the negotiations in a column published Friday morning (before the FIQ’s reaction, and before we know the details of the new offer).
In its new offer, the Interprofessional Health Federation of Quebec (FIQ), which represents 95% of nurses, believes that Quebec is asking for two new important concessions on flexibility.
First, according to the union, the new offer still allows for forced travel of a nurse from one type of care to another, very different type of care (e.g., from a CHSLD to intensive care). In the spring agreement, the maximum distance of permitted travel was set at 35 kilometres in the region and 25 kilometres in the city. This geographical marker has been removed in the new offer: nurses can now be moved throughout the territory of the same CISSS or CIUSSS. In practice, this is probably an improvement in the situation in Montreal, but a step backward in certain regions.
Quebec’s second request, which the union says was not in the spring agreement: transform stable day, evening and night positions into flexible rotational positions (day, evening and night; day and evening; day and night) when they are left vacant due to retirement or departure. Current collective agreements limit the number of flexible positions. About 30,000 of the 80,000 nurses already have flexible positions, according to the union.
In its new offer, Quebec made two monetary concessions, on the admissibility of double-rate overtime in a very specific case and on the possibility for the employer to pay accumulated vacation time (at the employee’s request, of course). However, these are minor concessions that do not affect flexibility and forced travel, the two main points in dispute.
Dissatisfied with the situation, the FIQ is asking nurses to refuse to work overtime starting September 19.
For her part, the president of the Quebec Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, said she was “shocked to hear Ms.me [Julie] Bouchard [présidente de la FIQ] in the public square while we are asked for the negotiation to take place at the table. […] It is wrong to say that the government wants to increase travel. It is irresponsible to scare the population when our goal is to provide better care with better organization of work in hospitals.”
“For the benefit of the patient, the time has come to put ourselves in solution mode, not in opposition mode,” wrote Minister Sonia LeBel.
Earlier this week, Premier François Legault warned that the negotiations were expected to be “very, very difficult.” “I don’t expect this to be resolved before Christmas,” Legault said Monday on Mario Dumont’s microphone at 99.5 FM.
It’s not going to be resolved by then, in fact.
Could this be resolved by a special law? This summer, the Legault government ruled out this possibility. Quebec has long since decreed a special law for its employees, and the Supreme Court of Canada has greatly narrowed this possibility.
Of course, things can change quickly in these kinds of tough negotiations. But this week, the tone has risen and the gap has widened between the two sides.
This is not good news.