The Girard budget which will be presented on Tuesday will be an opportunity to see whether education is truly a priority of the Legault government, believe the two major teachers’ union federations.
The Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) wants the funds devoted to education to be increased by at least 7% to meet the needs already provided for in collective agreements and other expenses already announced.
Its president, Mélanie Hubert, says she expects that the salary increases, class aid as well as all the measures that have been negotiated will be properly financed, failing which it will mean that the government wants to undress Pierre in order to dress Paul.
“We obviously expect that the measures that were negotiated in the collective agreements will be covered by the next budgets, otherwise, what that will mean is that we will have to cut elsewhere to ensure salaries and ensure the hours, for example, of class help,” said Mme Hubert in interview Monday.
“That’s why we put the importance [sur le fait] to calculate the costs of the system to ensure that everything remains covered and that in the end, we have not taken from one pocket to put back in the other,” adds the union leader.
“Ambitious” request
In a primary school in Longueuil, the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, noted the appetite of the FAE, with its request for 7%. “This one, I would describe as ambitious. But I understand the meaning of the question and their commitment. And I respect him. »
The joint memorandum of the four trade union centers — Fédération des Travailleurs et Travaileuses du Québec (FTQ), Centrale des syndicatsdemocratiques (CSD), Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) and Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ) — also evokes the need to enhance ” so [importante] the financing of public services”, of which education is part.
They also call for strengthening the training system, so as to promote “qualifying, transferable and recognized” training, in addition to financially supporting people who engage in such training or requalification.
The Federation of Education Unions (FSE), affiliated with the CSQ, admits that collective agreements represent “an addition of considerable sums” and that there have been numerous renovations in schools, in particular to improve quality. air.
However, educational needs also go beyond these aspects, and dialogue with the government must continue in this context, argues the president of the FSE, Josée Scalabrini.
“Recently, we all heard the somewhat clumsy remarks of the Prime Minister [François Legault] who, during a press conference on education, associated the sums allocated to the renewal of collective agreements with a largely deficit budget. However, he had neglected to talk about all of the government’s spending, such as the checks distributed and the tax cuts, the roof of the stadium, the investments for the battery factory, the Kings hockey games, and we pass,” underlined Mme Scalabrini.
“Perhaps it is a coincidence, but I notice in passing that we are proudly injecting large amounts into construction to accelerate training in this predominantly male field by associating it with the fight against shortages. However, when it comes to injecting sums to improve the conditions of a predominantly female profession and thus attract and retain staff, we associate it with the deficit,” she lamented.