Concrete Improvements to Working Conditions Required to Rebuild Network
Action at Quebec National Assembly, December 13, 2022.
Julie Bouchard is President of the Interprofessional Health Care Federation of Quebec (FIQ). The FIQ and the FIQP (FIQ-Private Sector) represent more than 80,000 nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists working in health care institutions throughout Quebec.
Workers' Forum: On January 18-19, at their special national negotiating council, the representatives of the unions affiliated with the FIQ and FIQP rejected the government's offers presented on December 15. Can you tell us more about this?
Julie Bouchard: First of all, everything that was offered on the monetary side was totally unacceptable. We are talking about a nine per cent increase over five years, which is far below inflation. For us, this offer is unbelievable.
Also, in the employer's offer, there was a lot of talk about holding forums. For us, the forums for the renewal of the collective agreement is something we've had before and, unfortunately, they are useless. These are discussion sessions to buy time. Often, those who are at the table have no decision-making power, and you end up with a large group of people representing different types of jobs. It's hard to arrive at a consensus so that everyone feels good, so that it benefits all the members we represent respectively. It seems that this is done to delay certain discussions even though we already have our demands, whether on retirement, wages, the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, and the other unions also have their demands on these subjects. We don't need to be in a large group, so why not use the bargaining table to get through these issues?
There is also a big setback in the offers regarding retirement. The current criteria of 35 years of service and 55 years of age to retire with a full pension is now replaced by 35 years of service and 57 years of age, which means that care professionals will have to work two years longer. The government is also proposing to reduce our income from the Government and Public Employees Retirement Plan [RREGOP ] income, because of some recent improvement made to the Quebec Pension Plan.
WF: What are the FIQ's main demands for the renewal of the collective agreement?
JB: The three main areas for which our 80,000 members have mandated us to negotiate with the government are remuneration, personal life-work balance and workload.
First of all, there's the issue of remuneration, which is extremely important. With respect to wages, we are asking for a four per cent yearly increase for a three-year agreement, in addition to a permanent annual wage adjustment mechanism in the collective agreement to ensure the protection of our members' purchasing power. Inflation concerns all Quebec citizens and therefore, our members as well.
With regard to personal life-work balance, which is also an unavoidable issue, we must work together and find solutions so that care professionals can have a family life, even if they are required to deal with the workload they have. For example, we want the work schedules to be known at least two weeks in advance and to cover at least three months. It's not normal that schedules come out weekly or every two or three weeks. Scheduling an appointment when you don't even know if you're working or not becomes even more complex.
When we talk about work overload, of course we're talking a lot about the issue of professional-patient ratios. For us, this is a way to reduce the workload as well as create attraction and retention within the network. The more care professionals recover and the more we succeed in training new ones, the more we create a movement, attract and retain those who are already in the network. But for this to happen we need good working conditions. The more staff we have in the departments, the more balanced the workload will be, rather than a workload which includes far too many patients for the quality of services needed.
In that regard, we have asked for the tabling of a law on safe professional-patient ratios. We have included this as a demand in the current negotiations. This requires a detailed analysis of each activity centre. What must be examined is the exact patient load so that the right number of care professionals are there to ensure not only safe care, but also quality care given by the right person.
We know very well that such a law cannot be adopted tomorrow. It's a medium to long-term project. We're not going to end up with the same ratios for the entire public network from one day to the next. It's a set of continuous evaluations that must be carried out and little by little, ratios will emerge that will contribute to creating a form of attraction and retention.
We are also asking for the elimination of the use of private agency personnel. We are asking for additional accumulated vacation days. Currently, after 15 years of seniority, an additional day of vacation is accumulated each year, of up to one week. We are asking for additional days because the need for rest is even more present than it was and it is the only time for care professionals to be able to rest both physically and psychologically.
We are also asking for the addition of a statutory holiday for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, to demand justice for Indigenous Peoples. This is part of the fight against the systemic racism that we believe exists in Quebec.
Also, and this is new, we are putting forward the demand, which all workers and their health care unions are also asking for, that 10 days of paid leave be granted to victims of domestic violence.
WF: Do you want to add anything in conclusion?
JB: For us, this is the negotiation to bring about hope. For far too long we've seen the network slowly fall apart. In 2023, we need a big push, with concrete actions, to improve working conditions.
(Translated from original French by Workers' Forum)
This article was published in
Number 2 - February 7, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10025.HTM
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