(Quebec) Public servants are ready to strike if the Legault government refuses their demands.
Posted at 4:19 p.m.
On the eve of a meeting with the employer party, the president of the Syndicat de la fonction publique du Québec (SFPQ), Christian Daigle, is confident that his members will give him a strike mandate shortly. The result of the ongoing consultations in the union bodies will be known next week, but Mr. Daigle said on Tuesday that he had noted the anger of the members who are mobilized.
“I am confident that our members will give us a mandate saying: ‘we are not happy, we want you to go further and that we start pressure tactics if necessary'”, he said. he said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.
“There is no one who wants to lose their salary by going on strike, that’s for sure, but if that’s the only way to make our demands understood by Mr. Legault and Mr.me LeBel (the President of the Treasury Board), we will have to do it. »
The union organization feared pitfalls in the consultations and mobilization due to teleworking, but participation in the consultations remained between 30 and 40%.
“We see that people are mobilized, that people are tired of seeing the negotiations stall, people are ‘fed up'”, argued Mr. Daigle, referring in particular to issues of labor scarcity. work, overwork or inequity in the raises granted to certain groups of employees rather than to others.
The union deplores that negotiations with the employer party have made little progress since last July.
Wednesday’s talks could serve to relaunch the work of the negotiating table.
Without providing the precise content of the demands discussed at the negotiating table, the president of the SFPQ demands a salary catch-up comparable to what has been granted in the health and education sectors.
According to the most recent data, the union was demanding at least 10% over three years to offset the rising cost of living. The employer party proposed a salary increase of 2% per year, with a bonus in the third year for those who are at the bottom of the salary scale.
“It’s not just warmed up that we want the table. We want tangible progress, we want the progress necessary for the people I represent. »
The average salary of a member of the SFPQ is between $38,000 and $40,000. The union represents 26,000 civil servants, technicians, administrative staff, clerks, etc.