Public sector negotiations | Negotiations with the Common Front postponed until December 26

Dramatic twist: after several days of intensive negotiations, at a time when an agreement seemed imminent between the government and the Common Front, the parties finally announced that they would resume discussions after Christmas. The postponement also applies to other unions still in discussions with Quebec in the middle of New Year’s Eve.

“Negotiations will continue on December 26, 2023,” declared the president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel. For its part, the Common Front did not wish to comment.

However, an agreement seemed close between the two parties after an unblocking, in recent days, at the so-called “sectoral” tables, where the working conditions specific to each trade were negotiated.

The government and the Common Front had both reiterated in recent days their objective of reaching an agreement by December 25. The Common Front negotiates at the so-called “central” table issues related to salaries for the four union centers it represents (CSN, CSQ, FTQ and APTS).

The progress since Saturday morning was such that more than 90% of the approximately 420,000 Common Front workers had in hand a “settlement hypothesis” that their negotiators will present to their delegates soon, once an agreement has been reached at the central table. So that will have to wait.

The Common Front recalled in recent days its threat to launch an unlimited general strike in January in the absence of a settlement by the end of the year.

Requests

The latest news was that the group said it was ready to sign five-year collective agreements, but was no longer quantifying its demands. They were initially around 23% increases in three years.

“We did not quantify these requests, we rather indicated to the government that our opening was linked to two conditions, namely: that it guarantees the protection of purchasing power and that it leads to enrichment. This has not been quantified in order to leave room for negotiation at the table,” he declared last week.

Quebec, for its part, had sent the signal that it was ready to increase its last offer of salary increases by 12.7% in five years. For the same period, the Common Front had recently demanded an indexation clause of 18.1% to cover the rise in the cost of living and an increase of 7% – instead of 9% – as “enrichment” . He has questioned the 7% increase since then.

The Common Front also repeated that “to conclude an agreement at the central table, there must be progress” regarding insurance and specialized workers, “as well as regarding working conditions at the different sectoral tables” .

An agreement in sight

The parties were all the more sure of reaching an agreement at the central table before Christmas due to the announcement of an agreement reached between a union affiliated with the FTQ on Sunday. This central union member of the Common Front was the only one which had not reached a compromise with the government until now.

The negotiating committee of the Council of Colleges (CPC, SCFP) affiliated with the FTQ, representing college support staff, had in fact announced in the morning that it had concluded a “hypothetical settlement” on the working conditions specific to its members.

It was one of the last dominoes to fall, after a series of education unions reached agreements on Saturday evening, hours after the announcement of a compromise between the government and the largest gathering of health workers, the Federation of Health and Social Services of the CSN (FSSS-CSN) and its 120,000 members.

The day before, it was the turn of the largest teachers’ union, the Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement (FSE-CSQ), which represents 60% of teachers, to open the ball by announcing that its delegates had adopted a agreement in principle at the end obtained after a blitz of negotiations.

Those who have not settled

Having also undertaken a blitz with the government a few hours later, the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), whose 22 days of walkout left its mark, had still not announced anything on Sunday. She also sees her discussions with Quebec being suspended until next Tuesday.

The union, whose president, Mélanie Hubert, had assured that it would not sign “a discounted agreement”, did not respond to questions sent on Christmas Eve.

For its part, the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ), which represents 80,000 employees of the health network, announced on Sunday that “important knots” persisted at its negotiating table for which a conciliator was appointed on the 19th. last December.