The Legault administration is offering an extra pay rise to government employees earning less than $52,000 in hopes of quickly concluding negotiations with the public sector.
• Also read: Legault accuses the unions of refusing to negotiate
This was announced by the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, in a press release on Monday morning.
This new offer comes in response to a concern from unions, who have been hammering since December, that the government’s offer “does not protect its members’ purchasing power in a context of inflation”.
However, Quebec has not specified the content of this pay increase, which comes on top of the original offer to increase the pay of 600,000 state employees by 9% over five years.
employee turnover
The new government offer also contains measures to counteract the high staff turnover in the public sector.
In addition to employees with an annual salary of less than 52,000 US dollars, technicians and young professionals would also increase their salaries.
That raise would finally hit psychologists whom the government is trying to recruit into the public network.
New program
In addition, the new Quebec offering includes a “5-year volunteer retention program” that would allow for both an increase in retirement benefits and a reduction in contributions for “experienced” employees who would continue to work full-time.
Sonia LeBel also announced that the bonuses for nurses, which were due to expire next Thursday, will be extended until June.
“It is urgent to act because summer is a critical time in the health network and we want to be prepared for the start of the 2023 school year.” These improved offers are a clear signal to the unions that we can fix this and want to act as soon as possible.” , said the minister.