It looks like the second installment of a horror movie in which the villain returns to haunt the protagonists in a new setting. Gender Chucky II Or Freddy’s Revenge.
Radio-Canada told us last week that the use of private placement agencies was increasingly common in the network of early childhood centers (CPE).1.
These agencies promise better salaries and more flexible conditions for educators, assistant educators and cooks.
Some employees succumb to the siren songs and make the leap to these agencies. Obviously, they will not be blamed for wanting to improve their working conditions.
Except that should set off some red flags. Unfortunately, we know this scenario all too well. It was allowed to unfold in the health system with extremely harmful consequences.
In theory, staffing agencies can help by providing staff to fill the gaps that arise when employees fall ill or are in short supply.
A hospital cannot function without nurses or orderlies, any more than a group of toddlers can manage itself without an educator.
Problems arise when these agencies promise better working conditions than those prevailing in the public network and attract employees to them.
These departures from the public network increase the number of holes to be plugged, reinforcing dependence on the agencies. The employees who remain find themselves overloaded, in addition to having to supervise the replacements parachuted by the agencies into environments they do not know.
This increases the dissatisfaction of public employees… who are still more likely to migrate to agencies.
Once the vicious circle is established, it is extremely difficult to break.
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, gave birth to a complete plan, to be deployed over three years, to wean the health system from employment agencies.
We would be crazy to let the same problem settle in our CPEs without reacting.
This is all the more true since we are talking here about toddlers who must create a bond of attachment with their educator. Parading interchangeable educators in front of them puts their development at stake.
While the increased use of agencies is worrying, it varies greatly by region. By digging, we find possible solutions.
In the Quebec region, for example, we are told that the use of private for-profit agencies is much less widespread than in Montreal and Laval.
For what ? Largely because there is a group of CPEs that has its own bank of substitutes.
In the midst of a labor shortage, this group actively approaches students or semi-retired people, for example, to fill in the gaps in the hundred or so CPEs it represents.
The replacement service is non-profit and employees sent to CPEs are paid under the same conditions as regular staff. And since the CPE group has no interest in shooting for its own purpose, it does not attempt to poach employees from the network.
Groups of CPEs also manage such replacement banks in Montérégie and the Eastern Townships.
Unfortunately, in the mid-2010s, the Couillard government cut off funding for these groups, which disappeared from several regions.
We now measure the consequences of these penny-pinching savings – barely $2 million province-wide.
In the office of the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, we are told that such replacement banks “are a model which seems to work and which will be studied if the phenomenon becomes widespread”.
However, we would like to feel a stronger sense of urgency in Quebec. Reforming groups of CPEs and setting up replacement banks in several regions will not be done by shouting scissors.
The idea is not to panic, but the example of the health system shows that we should not wait until the dependence on agencies is too strong to act. A proven solution exists. What are we waiting for to extend it to the entire network?