The Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) said it reached a proposed global agreement with the Quebec government on Wednesday evening after 22 days of indefinite general strikes.
Shortly afterwards, the President of the Ministry of Finance, Sonia LeBel, and the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, confirmed this proposed settlement with the FAE, which refers in particular to elements related to remuneration and work organization, such as the organization of the task and conditions of employment. This agreement targets 40% of teachers in the school network.
The union stated that it will present this solution hypothesis to the Federal Negotiating Council on Thursday, which will decide whether it fundamentally qualifies as an agreement. If this is the case, it will be presented to FAE members during general meetings after the holiday period.
“We will leave it to our authority to determine whether this is an agreement in principle that meets the urgent needs of teachers and their students. The FAE's 66,500 members have just spent 22 days on the streets without pay to make their voices heard. We will respect our democratic processes before commenting further,” FAE President Mélanie Hubert said in a press release.
Having just concluded intensive negotiations, 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 represents an agreement in principle.
– FAE (@la_FAE) December 28, 2023
Last Friday, December 22, the FAE announced that it was about to begin a lightning negotiation with Quebec. The FAE said it was ready for intensive negotiations “but not under the conditions imposed”.
“We worked for 22 days [grève générale illimitée]and it is certainly not about letting our behavior be dictated to us,” pleaded Ms. Hubert in a video posted on Facebook.
With this, the FAE follows the common line that had indicated earlier on Wednesday that all Quebec public sector unions affiliated to the organization now have in their pockets a hypothesis of a sectoral agreement with Quebec within the framework of the negotiations on the renewal of collective agreements.
The Laval-Rive-Nord skilled workers' union (SPPLRN-SCFP) reached an agreement on sectoral issues related to working conditions on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ) announced on its Facebook page .
This new proposed regulation “concludes the round of negotiations on the eight sectoral tables of the FTQ,” it says.
The SPPLRN-SCFP was the last of the FTQ-affiliated public sector unions and members of the all-union Common Front not to finalize a settlement proposal before Christmas.
The SPPLRN-SCFP represents 1,000 education professionals distributed across 235 schools in the Affluents, Laval and Mille-Îles school service centers.
The different basic agreement hypotheses will shortly be presented to the delegates of the bodies concerned.
While Quebec says the “details” of the proposals remain confidential for now, it addresses some key issues in its own press release.
Regarding the school network's support staff, he claims that “various agreed measures will in particular help to reduce precarity and encourage more full-time positions, as more working hours will be offered to support staff who will take on new roles to provide help and support .” to the class'.
“With these measures, it will therefore be possible to promote the support staff, while teachers will be able to devote more time to teaching, from which students will also benefit,” says the press release from the ministry responsible for government administration and administration. President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, Wednesday.
At university level there is also talk of a regulatory proposal agreed with CUPE to “in particular, give greater recognition to the important role of supporting staff and to improve their working conditions and their daily lives”.
Additionally, 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,” which closed on December 23.
This proposal therefore becomes a fundamental agreement that affects working conditions in individual sectors. It is presented to members when an agreement in principle has been ratified by the common front at the central table.
The FTQ mentioned that negotiations on salary issues would continue at the central table.
The joint union front, which also includes CSN, CSQ and APTS, still threatens to trigger an indefinite general strike in early 2024 if a satisfactory agreement is not reached at the central table.
The common front represents around 420,000 public sector employees.
Talks between the various unions and the Finance Ministry resumed on Tuesday after a 24-hour break.
Last weekend, several advances were made at sectoral tables in the areas of health and education, while many unions announced that they had reached preliminary agreements in principle on their working conditions.
After all these announcements, pressure is now growing on the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), which is negotiating individually with the government.
To watch in the video