Because it finds that its negotiations with Quebec are not progressing sufficiently, a body of the Interprofessional Health Federation (FIQ) has just adopted a mobilization plan which provides for an escalation in the means of pressure.
It is the extraordinary national council of the trade union organization which has just adopted this mobilization plan. It will now be submitted to the general meetings of the members, who will decide “in the coming weeks”, indicated the president of the FIQ, Julie Bouchard, in an interview with The Canadian Press on Monday.
The plan provides for an escalation in the means of pressure, starting with the holding of kiosks, tours, leaflets, up to “demonstrating in significant and disturbing places”, ceasing to perform tasks unrelated to care, not renewing permits to practice, organize sit insend bulk resignation letters, etc.
The gradation of the means of pressure would follow “the state of the negotiation table”, specified Mr.me Bouchard.
It is also in this context that the FIQ, which represents 80,000 nurses, nursing assistants and other healthcare professionals, adopted its new slogan: “there are limits”.
Collective agreements in the public and parapublic sectors, which cover more than 600,000 workers, expire on March 31. Gold, M.me Bouchard claims to have proposed 28 negotiation dates to Quebec, which would have retained only four.
The president specified that since the beginning of the year, there have only been two negotiation sessions for the FIQ. “And it was not real negotiation” on specific points, but rather “exchanges”, she explains. The third meeting will take place on Friday.
However, the FIQ had submitted its demands on November 7 and the government its offers on December 15, 2022.
Quebec ready to negotiate
Nevertheless, Quebec says it is ready to negotiate and instead points the finger at the unions. Again recently, Premier François Legault invited the FIQ to show flexibility.
And last week, in several interviews and press briefings, the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, affirmed that the unions “should come and sit with us” and with his Treasury colleague, Sonia LeBel. .
The FIQ suspects Quebec of wanting to “buy time” with its discussion forums, in which it wants the unions to participate, in parallel with the negotiation of collective agreements.
However, both the FIQ and the common front, which represents 420,000 workers, refuse to do so, affirming that the problems and the solutions are already known and that it is necessary instead to take concrete action and negotiate clauses accordingly in the agreements. collective.
“These points [contenus dans les forums de discussion] are already in our demands,” said M.me Bouchard, who points out that the FIQ thus submitted 60 proposals which come from the “43,500 members of the FIQ who took more or less 30 minutes to answer what they would like to have for attraction and retention, to improve their working conditions in the health network”.
“Since last week, the government has tried to make us negotiate in the public square, while it is they who refuse to negotiate”, criticizes Mme Bouchard. “He wants to make us bear the odious” of the negotiation which is not progressing, believes the union leader – hence the mobilization plan in stages.