Negotiations in the public sector follow one another and are not alike.
In spring 2021, the president of the FTQ, Daniel Boyer, was delighted with an offer of 6% over three years. “Finally, after more than a year of negotiations, we have agreed on provisions which will improve employment conditions to facilitate the attraction and retention of health and social services personnel while improving remuneration,” said a pleased -he.
On Sunday, his successor, Magali Picard, gave a completely different speech. She found the new salary offer of 10.3% over five years, or once again 2% per year, presented by the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, “derisory” and “insulting”.
It is obvious that inflation today is out of all proportion to what it was two and a half years ago. Mme LeBel feigned surprise at the immediate rejection of her offer, but she knows very well that union leaders simply cannot accept conditions that would impoverish their members without being immediately disowned. If it wants an agreement, the government will necessarily have to offer more. The unions know it, and Mme LeBel too.
In retrospect, it is more difficult to understand how Mr. Boyer could say that the provisions of collective agreements would improve the attraction and retention of staff, when nurses and teachers seemed to be fleeing hospitals and schools instead. point of compromising their proper functioning.
Beyond the salary question, there are clearly provisions in the agreements which have a repulsive effect.
You do not demobilize an army when you find yourself in a position of strength facing a weakened enemy. The strength of the strike mandates testifies to a determination that has not been observed for a long time among state employees.
Not only does inflation make the government’s offer unacceptable, but the political context is clearly more advantageous for the union side than it was last time. The pandemic imposed the greatest restraint on him. The population would not have accepted being taken hostage while people were dying by the thousands in hospitals and CHSLDs. This time, the unions can legitimately hope to benefit from his sympathy.
For a long time, the public sector was associated primarily with civil servants, who were known for taking it easy in the comfort of air-conditioned offices, ironclad job security and a generous pension plan. Today, we are thinking more of health personnel — these “guardian angels” who were entitled to our eternal recognition, Prime Minister Legault kept repeating. And we are less envious of the three months of vacation for teachers to see their increasingly difficult working conditions in overcrowded classes and dilapidated schools.
Even if the Interprofessional Health Federation and the Autonomous Education Federation are still not part of it, the reconstitution of the common front gives the unions a strike force that they did not have during the last rounds of negotiations. And the Legault government no longer has the support it then enjoyed in public opinion.
Everyone has clearly seen that the State’s famous capacity to pay is a variable geometry concept. The Prime Minister must have felt an urgent need to satisfy his caucus last spring by offering MPs a 30% increase, which shocked not only public sector employees.
When he went to meet the demonstrators last week, he pleaded that parliamentarians had not had a catch-up in 20 years. A catch-up compared to who? If he was talking about other provincial parliamentarians, Quebec MPs have now overtaken them, by far, while nurses and teachers remain behind.
The public sector strike is an instrument that unions must use with caution. Their sympathy capital can quickly run out when users are too inconvenienced by service interruptions. However, it is no longer enough for services to be maintained or to stop deteriorating; these negotiations must absolutely lead to an improvement.
It is very difficult for the population to assess the merits of the reforms proposed in the health or education sectors. She will appreciate them by her results. If they are not there in the next elections, it is not the unions who will be judged.
The president of the Treasury Board urges them to negotiate clauses that would allow more flexibility to be introduced into the organization of work. But this comes at a price, which the government will have to agree to pay. Otherwise, he will have to explain to voters why he preferred to sacrifice their well-being.