The president of the union of 1800 state engineers, Marc-André Martin, affirms that there will be no return to the negotiating table “as long as the government persists in saying that increasing our working hours work is to increase our wages, and as long as he does not table a wage offer that benefits a majority of our members”, on general strike since April 22.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
Joined by The Press At the end of a demonstration held in front of the National Assembly on Wednesday, the president of the Professional Association of Engineers of the Government of Quebec (APIGQ) responded to Minister Sonia LeBel, President of the Treasury Board. In the morning, she criticized APIGQ for having broken off talks on Tuesday evening, leaving the negotiating table without even deigning to comment on the latest salary offer, which she described as “substantial”.
“We are proposing something that is unprecedented in the Quebec public service, the creation of two scales, two salary structures. This is unprecedented, said the minister, giving an update on the negotiations on Wednesday morning. Why are we doing this? This is because we recognize that there is a need at the Ministère des Transports to promote, recognize and attract high-level expertise. »
“The creation of this double scale, explained Mr.me LeBel, will make it possible to offer highly qualified engineers a higher salary, which is normal. The engineers say they want to value expertise, but by asking for the same salary structure for everyone, and the same increases. We want to get to the heart of the problem of high-level expertise at the Department of Transport. »
Only 19% of engineers
With this latest salary offer tabled Tuesday evening, the salary of a state engineer at the first level of the scale would increase from $54,000 to $62,000. At the highest level, salaries could rise from $96,000 to $122,000, according to the minister. This is an increase of 28%, well above union demands.
The president of APIGQ, however, replied that the “generosity” of the latest government offer would only concern 19% of its members, or approximately one engineer in five.
“The ones who would benefit the most from this are the engineers at the bottom rung of the ladder who don’t yet have an ‘expert’ class. If we speak in terms of hourly rates, and taking into account the increase in the working week, they would make a real wage gain of 18%,” according to the union’s calculations.
On the other hand, according to Marc-André Martin, for 51% of APIGQ members, or half, the new offers presented by Quebec would represent an average hourly wage increase of 6 to 7%. This is less than half of the 14.7% wage catch-up claimed by the APIGQ for the 1,800 state engineers, two-thirds of whom work at the Quebec Ministry of Transport.
With the collaboration of Fanny Lévesque