The government must send a clear signal that working conditions will improve in schools if it wishes to counter the labor shortage, attract employees and keep those who are already there, pleads the Central Trade Unions of Quebec (CSQ).
Teaching staff want to “improve their daily lives” as a priority, said Brigitte Bilodeau, vice-president of the Federation of Teachers’ Unions (FSE) at the CSQ. “From year to year, the staff shortage is getting worse and we will have to reverse the trend,” she added.
The CSQ met with the media on Monday morning when it presented its sectoral offers to the government. The two parties must negotiate as the expiry of the collective agreements in the public and parapublic sectors approaches, on March 31.
It is a particularly alarming portrait of the network that the trade unionists presented at the start of these negotiations. The representative of education professionals, Jacques Landry, even maintained that the services were on the verge of a “fracture” while 500 positions are still vacant and that establishments must resort to private agencies to recruit speech therapists and psychologists.
Fewer administrative tasks
To give air to teachers, the CSQ demands in particular that they be removed from administrative tasks and participation in various committees. She would also like the presence of students with difficulties in the classes to be taken into account even better when determining the size of the groups.
The support staff representative (special educators, daycare staff, housekeeping, etc.), Éric Pronovost, for his part, calls for the precariousness of its members, who are often confined to part-time work, to be tackled. and at times, he says, of 10 to 12 hours a week.
Finally, the central demands that the salaries of all its members be increased this time. During the last negotiation, the government concentrated the increases on teachers at the beginning and end of their career.
But the priority for teachers is the heaviness of the task, underlined Heidi Yetman, representative of the English-speaking network at the union. “If we give them some hope that things will improve, we can attract new teachers. »
Remember that the CSQ is part of the inter-union common front with the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ) and the Association of Professional and Technical Personnel in Health and Social Services (APTS). The common front negotiates the main wage demands, but each of its members must conduct sectoral negotiations on more specific points.
The latter calls for wage increases indexed to inflation, and increased by 2%, 3% then 4% over three years.
The exit of the CSQ follows that of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE), last week. The FAE, which represents workers in the school network, is not part of the common front.
with The Canadian Press