Health unions urge province to negotiate contracts

Unions representing nursing and cardiorespiratory care staff in the province, whose collective agreements expired more than a year ago, are accusing the government of Premier François Legault of negotiating in bad faith and trying to roll back working conditions.

“Nothing is settled in health and social services, more than a year after the expiry of our collective agreements,” Josée Marcotte, vice-president of the Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux, said in a statement published Sunday.

“The government is on the wrong track if it thinks it can force our members to set back their working conditions. Thousands of nursing and cardiorespiratory professionals demand more respect, and this requires real negotiation to tackle fundamental problems.”

The union, along with the Centrale des syndicats du Québec and the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, said in the joint statement the Legault government is refusing to negotiate on working conditions, including staffing levels, forced overtime and workloads, even though improvements are needed to keep personnel and attract new people to jobs in health care.

The unions claim the province has been managing working conditions through ministerial orders during the pandemic rather than issuing government negotiators a mandate to work out conditions at the bargaining table.

As a result of one ministerial order still in force, workers may not be able to take vacations again this summer, they say. Uncompetitive salaries and difficult working conditions, and not just the pandemic, are making it difficult to attract new workers to jobs in health care, they added.