Quebec teachers hopeful about talks
They may not be ready to claim victory just yet, but teachers in the province say they have gotten rid of several “irritants” during negotiations with the government on a new collective agreement.
Richard Goldfinch, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), told the Montreal Gazette on Thursday that the tone at the bargaining table has changed. “What we did this last week was we came back with our global proposal and they accepted it quite well. They looked at it and went ‘wow' there's some really interesting stuff here. And there was some excitement at that point,” he said.
According to Goldfinch, the Couillard government has abandoned the idea of increasing teachers' workweek from 32 to 35 hours in the collective agreement, and will not increase the student-teacher ratio in elementary schools. The province also allegedly agreed to maintain allocated funds and hundreds of resource-teacher jobs to help children with special needs.
Treasury Board President Martin Coiteux did not confirm the information, but his press attaché, Marie-Ève Pelletier, said discussions around the negotiating table are indeed constructive. “We wish for a positive outcome, to reach a negotiated agreement which respects taxpayers' capacity to pay and which does not lead to an increase in taxes or compromise achieving a balanced budget in 2015-16,” she said.
QPAT, which represents 8,000 teachers in the province's English schools, is partners with the Fédérationdessyndicatsdel'enseignement (FSE) representing 65,000 teachers. Another 30,000 teachers are represented by the Fédération autonome de l'enseignement. All of these unions have rotating strike mandates, which they threaten to use toward the end of October.
Teachers from at least 10 schools in the Quebec City area have also cancelled Halloween celebrations as part of their pressure tactics, the media learned on Thursday.
“We have this large strike mandate, we also have parents supporting us because parents want to see a reinvestment in the school system. We're out there constantly ... and I think what happened is the government woke up and went, 'Oh, we need to do something here, we need to make ourselves look a little better right now,' ” Goldfinch said, adding the larger question of salaries and pensions still needs to be addressed.
Teachers, together with all public sector workers, are asking for a 13.5 per cent raise over three years, while the government has offered a two per cent salary increase over five years.
“You need to show teachers that they're respected and this is attached to salary,” argued Goldfinch. “Younger teachers, new teachers coming into the system could progress along the salary scale a little faster so you can attract good teachers to the system and retain them. That's still up for grabs.”
“It's a roller-coaster ride,” he said.