The fate of the agreement in principle reached between the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) and Quebec could be sealed this evening if members of the Basses-Laurentides union approve it.
• Also read: A fourth union affiliated with the FAE narrowly accepts the agreement in principle
• Also read: The Outaouais Education Union votes in favor of the agreement
• Also read: “All this for this?”: The content of the agreement could fundamentally improve the fate of the students… or not
On Tuesday evening, a fourth union affiliated with the FAE, the Syndicat de l'enseignement de l'Ouest de Montréal, narrowly approved the agreement, with a very narrow majority of 51%.
In order to be ratified, the agreement must, in principle, be accepted by at least five of the nine local unions affiliated to the FAE and by a majority of all the members it represents.
So far, teachers from five unions have spoken at a general meeting and only one group, the one from Laval, rejected the agreement by 68%.
The members of the Alliance of Professors of Montreal tended to approve the proposal by a very narrow majority (52%), while the members of Pointe-de-l'Île and Outaouais voted in favor by almost 60% (58.5% and 57%, respectively). %).
The four unions that have already agreed to the agreement alone represent 56% of the FAE's total of 66,500 members, meaning that the majority of the required mandates in the Federal Negotiating Council have already been achieved.
If the members of the Basses-Laurentides Education Union approve the agreement during the general assembly scheduled for Wednesday evening, the majority of the local unions affiliated to the FAE would have given the green light, which would allow the Federal Council to negotiate on the FAE to then formally ratify the agreement in principle .
Other local unions will vote until January 31st.
However, the very close results of several general meetings show how much the basic agreement reached at the end of December after more than 20 days of strikes is dividing teachers.
On the salary front, the proposed rule provides for average salary increases of 21.5%, but in particular the “class composition” provisions, which are at the heart of the union's demands, disappoint several teachers.
Common front
As for teachers represented by the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ), part of the Common Front, voting is going well in the 34 local unions.
Its members vote in two steps: they vote on the cross-sector agreement, which affects the remuneration negotiated by the Common Front at the central table, and separately on the sectoral agreement, which specifically concerns their working conditions.
The cross-industry agreement has strong support among union members, while the verdict is more mixed on working conditions, where measures around class composition also cause some disappointment.
According to the results published so far, five local unions affiliated to the FSE-CSQ have approved the sector agreement, including teachers from Estrie with a very narrow majority of 50.5%.
Members of two other unions, in Lanaudière and Trois-Rivières, instead rejected the agreement on working conditions.
Can you share information about this story?
Write to us or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.