Up to $345,000 for a Hydro-Québec union member

I was surprised when I read the figures. What, remuneration can reach $345,000 for a Hydro-Québec union member? We are far from the image of the widow and the orphan sometimes associated with unions.

The figures come from a document produced by Hydro-Québec following a request for access to information. The request was not made by The Pressbut our researcher William Leclerc came across the document filed on May 20 by Hydro-Québec on its website.

The document presents the remuneration of the 15 highest paid union members in 2023 for four of the state corporation’s six unions.

The $345,000 compensation was paid to the highest paid member of the Hydro-Québec Network Employees Union (SERHQ). Employees belonging to this union oversee the planning and operation of the electricity network (distribution, transmission, production).

The union’s 15 highest-paid members earned between $276,000 and $345,000 last year, including bonuses and overtime pay. Not bad is not it ?

Among the three other employment groups identified, engineers have the highest paid union members ($322,000). Followed by trade employees – linemen and others –, the highest paid of whom obtained $314,000 in 2023, and specialists and professionals ($206,000).

Note that for trades employees, the gap is not that big between 15^e and the highest paid: remuneration ranges from $243,000 to $314,000.

At Hydro-Québec, I am told that these remunerations are out of the ordinary.

“They are not representative of the average. They reflect those who work a lot of overtime, particularly due to breakdowns,” spokesperson Marc-Antoine Pouliot explains to me.

In 2023, Hydro experienced the worst year in 15 years for outages, due to storms.

The freezing rain of April 2023, for example, forced many employees to work overtime (overtime is mandatory for trade employees).

In total, the state-owned company paid $217 million for overtime in 2023. The amount is concentrated between certain groups of employees among the 22,806 that Hydro-Québec has.

What is the representative base salary, then? At the end of the day Thursday, Hydro ultimately did not agree to provide me with the minimum and maximum level of the basic salary scale of the four unions concerned, that is to say before overtime and bonuses. Confidential data, according to Hydro.

At most, I was told that the maximum base salary of professional union members is approximately 3 times less than the $314,000 of the highest paid on the list. Same thing for network employees (around three times less than $345,000).

However, by searching the public Corail site of the Quebec Ministry of Labor, I was able to find the collective agreement for engineers. In 2023, according to the document, the minimum salary at the first level was $63,722 and the salary at the fourth level was $151,106. Overtime is paid at “time and a half” (1.5 times the hourly wage).

Impossible to quickly get hold of the three other agreements and their salary scales.

Hydro-Québec also tells me that the collective agreements of four of the six unions expired on December 31, including those of engineers (2,600 members) and trades employees (nearly 6,000 members).

The president of the Professional Union of Hydro-Québec Engineers (SPIHQ), Nicolas Cloutier, tells me that negotiations began in May 2023. “The negotiations are progressing well. We hope to conclude before the construction holidays,” he told me.

Among the challenges of the engineers’ union is teleworking and maintaining purchasing power. For the 15 highest paid, Mr. Cloutier points out that his group includes unionized executives (the first of five executive levels at Hydro), who earn more than non-executives.

The president of the Hydro-Québec Trades Employees’ Union, Frédéric Savard, did not want to speak to me on this subject. The Hydro-Québec Network Employees Union did not respond to my email.

The levels of compensation with overtime, which sometimes exceed $300,000, are considerable given that the base salary of Hydro-Québec CEO Michael Sabia is $639,000.

Certainly, the pay of Hydro’s big boss can exceed $1 million with bonuses, as was the case for Sophie Brochu, but the CEO’s responsibilities are much greater than those of union members.

And knowing Michael Sabia, his work weeks easily exceed 40 or 50 hours, as is the case for most CEOs elsewhere.

Hoping that Hydro will be able to find a fair common ground with its employees, in the context of the significant expansion of the network over the coming years and the costs that will result from it.