After ongoing negotiations with the provincial government crumbled last week, thousands of public daycare employees in Quebec will go on strike for up to four days starting Monday.
“The representatives of [early childhood] employees… and the employers’ party failed to come to an agreement and concluded talks,” the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) union announced in a Friday press statement announcing the strike.
All of the province’s daycare unions are going on strike to press for greater wages, which is the main concerning point in the negotiations. Thousands of workers will strike in daycares represented by the CSN-affiliated Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN) on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
For some of those workers, an extended general strike could be declared as early as Wednesday. It’s nearly more than For more than a year and a half, public daycare employees in Quebec were without a government contract, and in September, they opted to begin rolling strikes.
In a statement, Lucie Longchamps, vice-president of the FSSS-CSN, said, “The government stubbornly refuses to offer a salary catch-up for all employees, which we have been demanding from the very start of the negotiations.”
The government stated it would raise their wages by 9% but not much more, citing the need to be fair to civil servants who perform similar work in other sectors.
According to the CSQ, this is inadequate, and it is seeking hikes of 13 to 20% for these workers. Mathieu Lacombe, Quebec’s family minister, stated last week that his government “truly wants to solve” the problem, admitting that instructors are underpaid.
Source: CBC News
