The Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) announced that it had reached a proposed global settlement with the Quebec government on Wednesday evening, after 22 days of indefinite general strike.
The union indicated that it will present this hypothesis of settlement to the Federal Negotiating Council on Thursday, which will determine whether it can be qualified as an agreement in principle. If this is the case, it will be presented to FAE members during general meetings after the holiday season.
“We will leave it to our authority to determine whether this is an agreement in principle that meets the pressing needs of teachers and their students. The 66,500 members of the FAE have just spent 22 days in the streets, without pay, to make themselves heard. We will respect our democratic processes before expressing ourselves further,” said the president of the FAE, Mélanie Hubert, in a press release.
After intensive negotiations which have just ended, the FAE will present to the CFN a global settlement proposal agreed with the employer party.
The CFN will meet tomorrow to determine whether this proposal constitutes an agreement in principle.
— FAE (@la_FAE) December 28, 2023
Last Friday, December 22, the FAE announced that it was on the eve of starting a blitz of negotiations with Quebec. The FAE said it was ready to engage in intensive negotiations, “but not under the conditions imposed”.
“We did 22 days of [grève générale illimitée]and it is certainly not to let us dictate our conduct,” Ms. Hubert pleaded in a video posted on Facebook.
The FAE thus follows the common front which, earlier Wednesday, had indicated that all of the Quebec public sector unions forming part of the organization now had in their pocket a hypothesis of sectoral settlement with Quebec, as part of the negotiations for the renewal collective agreements.
The Union of Professionals of Laval-Rive-Nord (SPPLRN-SCFP) reached an agreement on sectoral issues relating to working conditions during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, announced the Federation of Quebec Workers ( FTQ) on his Facebook page.
This new proposed regulation “concludes the round of negotiation of the eight sectoral tables of the FTQ,” it is indicated.
The SPPLRN-SCFP was the last of the public sector unions affiliated with the FTQ and members of the inter-union common front not to have concluded a settlement proposal before Christmas.
The SPPLRN-SCFP represents 1,000 education professionals distributed among 235 schools in the Affluents, Laval and Mille-Îles school service centers.
The different hypotheses of agreement in principle will soon be presented to the delegates of the bodies concerned.
While saying that the “details” of the proposals remain confidential for the moment, Quebec addresses some major themes in its own press release.
Concerning the support staff of the school network, he maintains that “various agreed measures will notably make it possible to reduce precariousness and encourage more full-time positions since more working hours will be offered to support staff who will have new responsibilities ‘help and support to the class’.
“Thus, these measures will make it possible to promote support staff while teachers will be able to devote themselves more to teaching, which will also allow students to benefit,” we can read in the press release from the minister’s office responsible for Government Administration and president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, Wednesday.
At the college level, there is also talk of a proposed regulation agreed with CUPE to allow “in particular to further recognize the important role played by support employees and to improve their working conditions and their daily lives”.
Furthermore, the Federation of Education Professionals, affiliated with the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), announced Wednesday that its delegates “unanimously endorsed the proposed global settlement” concluded on December 23.
This proposal therefore becomes an agreement in principle that affects sectoral working conditions. It will be presented to members when an agreement in principle has been ratified by the common front at the central table.
The FTQ mentioned that negotiations at the central table continued Wednesday on salary issues.
The common inter-union front, which also includes the CSN, the CSQ and the APTS, still threatens to trigger an unlimited general strike at the beginning of 2024 in the absence of a satisfactory agreement at the central table.
The common front represents around 420,000 public sector workers.
Discussions between the various unions and the Treasury Board resumed Tuesday after a 24-hour break.
Last weekend, several advances were made at the sectoral tables in health and education, while many unions announced that they had reached tentative agreements in principle on their working conditions.
Following all these announcements, pressure is now increasing on the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), which is negotiating individually with the government.