Staff losses and the growing inability to recruit staff in the community are real challenges. The issues related to the recruitment and retention of personnel have their share of consequences, including for the population of Quebec. In particular, organizations are forced to reduce or even abolish some of their services.
Among many examples, we can think of the JEVI suicide prevention center in Estrie, which was forced to close its telephone intervention line for lack of personnel.
The future looks even more difficult. Minister Jean Boulet mentioned that the effects of the labor shortage were increasingly worrying and that a historic low was to be expected in 2030. The government recognizes the urgency to act and is committed to stimulate employment for certain priority sectors, in particular the public sector. The community sector should also be considered a priority sector.
Community organizations are faced with a difficult and complex reality. On the one hand, the labor shortage that affects all employment sectors affects them. On the other hand, their insufficient funding prevents them from offering suitable and competitive working conditions.
It is not uncommon for skilled workers to receive salaries of around $ 14 an hour without benefits.
This reality worries us considering that an aggravation is to be expected if the funding of organizations is not significantly improved. At a time when the public network is desperately looking for staff, organizations are seeing an intensification of the network’s recruitment efforts from community employees.
Wage disparities
The new collective agreements of the public network will increase the attraction for jobs in this sector. The minimum wage in the network is around $ 23 an hour. In the community sector, many organizations are struggling to offer $ 20 an hour, without group insurance or pension plan. The colossal investments announced in the economic update to increase the workforce of the public network will also contribute to the attraction for this sector.
The Pay Equity Act celebrated its 25th anniversary last November. Thanks to this, women workers in the public sector have obtained salary increases based on the principle of pay equity. Considering that women represent more than 75% of the staff in the community sector, would it not be justified to demand salary improvements based on this same principle?
Faced with these findings, it is imperative that community workers be included in government priorities. Organizations are an essential link in the social net and their staff have the right to decent working conditions.
An improvement in the funding of organizations is urgently needed, especially in a context where the consumer price index has increased by 5.1% in Quebec.
The underfunding of the community sector has structural causes. It is deplorable to note a growing gap between the indexation rate of funding for organizations and that granted to the public network, which accentuates the impoverishment of community workers.
This is why we are calling for an indexation calculated by taking into account the valuation of the workers’ salary conditions as well as the operating costs linked to the reality of the management of our community organizations.
* Co-signers : Marie-Line Audet, National Table of Community Development Corporations; Caroline Toupin, Quebec Network for Autonomous Community Action; Mercède Roberge, Table of provincial groupings of community and voluntary organizations; Paule Dalphond, Regroupement des Auberges du cœur du Québec; Lili Plourde, Quebec Federation of Autism; Alice Charasse, Quebec Society of Schizophrenia; Catherine Jetté, Regional Table of Community Organizations in Montérégie; Nicholas Legault, Regroupement des maisons de jeunes du Québec; Diane Harvey, Quebec Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation; Audrey Sirois, Group of Quebec community organizations for street work; Roxane Thibeault, Regrouping of crisis intervention services of Quebec; Pierre Plourde, Association of telephone listening centers in Quebec; René Cloutier, Avant de cracker network; Jérôme Gaudreault, Quebec Association for Suicide Prevention; Vincent Marcoux, Quebec Association of Addiction Intervention Centers; Lynda Poirier, Regroupement des Centers de Prévention du Suicide du Québec; Julie Ouellet, Association of independent youth community organizations in Quebec; Jean-Pierre Ruchon, Group of alternative mental health resources in Quebec; Boromir Vallée Dore, Quebec roaming solidarity network