(Quebec) Quebecers have not seen anything yet. “It’s going to be hard” and “it’s likely to get messy in the coming weeks” due to the “resistance” of the unions on strike regarding the government’s demands at the negotiating tables, warns Prime Minister François Legault. He nevertheless maintains that a special law “is not envisaged” to force a return to work.
The common front (CSN, FTQ, CSQ and APTS) launched a strike on Friday until December 14 and threatens an unlimited general strike like the FAE at the beginning of next year.
François Legault refuses to give in. He is determined to obtain additional management powers and make collective agreements more flexible.
“The sooner we resolve this, the better it will be. But we need flexibility to provide good services to Quebecers. So we are going to take the time it takes to convince the unions, and indirectly the employees, to have this flexibility for their working conditions, but also to offer better services to the population,” he said during of a press conference to take stock of the parliamentary session which ends with a gag order to adopt the Dubé reform.
If “it risks stirring up”, it is because “there is resistance to change in the unions, we see it, and I hope that it will last as short as possible”, he affirmed. .
The Prime Minister considers that he has obtained the mandate from the population to make these changes. “I see that we were elected for that,” he said. He was unable to provide them in the previous round of negotiations which took place during the pandemic. “It was not the time to start a battle with, among others, the nurses’ unions,” he said. “But here we are, Quebec is here. I feel that the population actually wants us to finally have the courage to give ourselves the means to provide better services. It is time to make these changes and give Quebecers the services they deserve. »
“It hasn’t been done, it should have been done a long time ago. And that’s going to take a lot of courage. I expect it will be tough in the coming weeks,” he warned.
According to him, “there is good and there is less good” in the counter-offer presented by the common front. He added that some unions “show a certain openness to flexibility and others do not.”
The Prime Minister says he wants to obtain more “flexibility” to, among other things, advance the assignment of teachers, offer salary increases or different bonuses from one job category to another, and call into question the power of a union to reject an agreement on work hours between a manager and an employee.
The common front accused the Prime Minister of wanting to “rip pages out of collective agreements” and return to the era of “favoritism” with his demands.
But for the Prime Minister, it is essential to relax collective agreements to give new powers to managers in the health and education networks. Managers who, moreover, become more accountable and will have to “give results” under the Dubé and Drainville reforms, he argued. “That’s how it works in the private sector, and that’s how it should work in the public sector. »
For his part, the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, announced the appointment of additional conciliators to “bring the parties together at the sectoral tables of the FTQ, the APTS, the CSN and the CSQ”.