(Montreal) Several government departments and agencies will be affected, Tuesday and Wednesday, by a strike by some 26,000 civil servants who are members of the Union of Public and Parapublic Service of Quebec.
Posted at 2:39 p.m.
It is mainly office workers and technicians who are concerned and who are employed by departments and agencies such as the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec.
These will be their second and third days of a 10-day strike mandate to be exercised at the appropriate time. Their first day of strike took place on March 30.
Essential services must be maintained. About 4,000 members are assigned there, in Public Security, for example, in courthouses, for the issuance of social assistance checks or in government air transport for medical evacuations.
The collective agreement for the civil servants unit of the SFPQ expired on March 31, 2020, as was the case for the other unions in the public and parapublic sectors.
However, the latter have almost all renewed their collective agreement for 2020-2023. This is not the case for the state engineers either, who are also on strike – indefinitely in their case and since last Friday.
Members of the SFPQ must also demonstrate in Quebec and Montreal, Tuesday and Wednesday, in front of the National Assembly, in Parc des Faubourgs in Montreal and in front of the courthouses of the metropolis and the capital.
Litigation: compensation
Remuneration is at the heart of the dispute. The SFPQ believes that salaries are no longer competitive and are detrimental to the recruitment and even retention of personnel in the public service.
According to the SFPQ, the Quebec government is offering a 2% increase for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, 2% for 2021-2022 and 2% for 2022-2023. These are the same increases as those that have been granted, in general, to other state employees, with bonuses for the lowest employees and entry salaries.
Quebec has already indicated that negotiations are continuing with the SFPQ and that it does not wish to negotiate in the public square.
The SFPQ is a large union that is independent of the central unions. The latter have also reconstituted a common front in order to negotiate together the next collective agreements in the public sector.