The Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), which represents nurses in the province, is still in negotiations with the Quebec government and denounces that possible salary increases are dependent on greater labor mobility.
While Prime Minister François Legault, Education Minister Bernard Drainville and Finance Minister Sonia Lebel congratulated each other on Sunday afternoon on the successes achieved in negotiations with teachers, nurses are still looking for common ground with Quebec.
In a press release a few hours before Mr. Legault's press conference in Montreal, the FIQ even publicly denounced what it described as “blackmail” in the negotiations.
“It is a coincidence that we represented the point of education,” defends the president of the FIQ, Julie Bouchard, in an interview with Le Journal.
Currently, Quebec's proposed salary increase is approximately 12.7% over five years. However, “the employer party has clearly stated that any additional salary increase will inevitably be linked to its desire for flexibility,” FIQ complains.
For the union, this workforce flexibility leads to a deterioration in the quality of patient care and hopes that Quebec takes this request off the negotiating table.
“Yes, concessions have to be made in the negotiations, but we cannot be asked to make a decision [entre la sécurité des soins et les salaires]», emphasizes Ms. Bouchard.
The president of the Quebec Interprofessional Health Federation, Julie Bouchard Courtoisie, the FIQ
The president of the FIQ goes even further and claims that the government allows such extortion because a high proportion of women work as nurses.
“I don’t think the government would have blackmailed such people in a predominantly male unionized environment, such as construction, to name a few,” Ms. Bouchard said.
Quebec claims to be 'able to get along'
The two parties therefore seem to be firmly anchored in their positions and the negotiations are therefore “more peaceful than we would like,” emphasizes Julie Bouchard.
When asked about these negotiations during the press conference with the Prime Minister and his education counterpart, the President of the Ministry of Finance, Sonia Lebel replied that an agreement is “the meeting of two wills”.
“We have shown that we are able to get along,” she said, referring to agreements in the education sector.
The President of the Finance Ministry, Sonia Lebel, did not want to give a specific timetable for an agreement with the nursing staff on Sunday afternoon. SCREENSHOT / VAT NEWS / QMI AGENCY
In the case of the nurses, remember that a mediator has been appointed since mid-December to try to resolve the standoff with the government.
The FIQ represents 80,000 nurses, practical nurses, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists from all regions of Quebec.