The Legault government announces that it submitted a settlement offer to the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) on Monday evening, saying: “ [espérer] positive feedback from the union shortly”
“We are committed to finding a solution quickly and this proposal demonstrates that,” Treasury Department President Sonia LeBel said in a written statement sent to media Tuesday morning.
If accepted, this could enable concrete improvements to student services and teaching conditions and would address the priority issues raised by the FAE, she argued.
This proposal follows the union’s counteroffer on Saturday.
The FAE went on an indefinite general strike on November 23rd. More than 66,000 teachers are on sick leave. Around 800 schools are affected in Montreal, Laval, the Laurentians, Outaouais, the Capitale-Nationale and the greater Granby region. Around 368,000 students are denied education.
Several points are controversial in this negotiation, including the opening of special classes for children in difficulty. Quebec also wants to bring forward the division of teachers into classes to June to avoid the peak back-to-school period in August.
The proposed regulation presented on Monday evening by the Legault government coincides with the start of the last week of parliamentary work before the holidays.
The announcement comes as a Supreme Court judge on Monday partially granted a request for an injunction from the Montreal School Services Center ordering the FAE-affiliated Alliance of Professors to allow construction workers into schools .
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Meanwhile, talks continue with the nine other union units negotiating with the government over the renewal of public sector workers.
The Common Front, of which the CSQ is a member, will mark seven new days of strike starting Friday. For its part, it represents almost 100,000 teachers.
This means that unless there is an arrangement, all primary and secondary schools in Quebec will remain closed from Friday until next Thursday, to the great dismay of Prime Minister Legault, who had called on union members to end their strike last week.
The CEGEPs will also be affected by the new strike days of the Common Front, so much so that the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, announced on Monday evening that she would postpone by a week the holding of the next unified language exams at the university.
With information from The Canadian Press