Many bus drivers in the Lanaudière region launched an indefinite general strike Monday morning, affecting the school transportation of several thousand students.
This walkout concerns the Transcollin-CSN Workers’ Union, the Brissette & Frères-CSN Bus Drivers’ Union and the Gaudreault-CSN Autobus Workers’ Union, which has a total of around sixty members.
The Samares School Service Center and Esther-Blondin College are the two main clients affected by the Gaudreault Group, which owns and operates the three companies under negotiation, we can read in the press release issued by the Confederation of National Unions (CSN).
The president of the school transportation sector of the Federation of Public Service Employees (FEESP-CSN), Carole Laplante, stressed that the latest employer offers were not “up to the standards recently concluded in the region for the school transport sector”.
Employee salary
Bus drivers are exercising their strike mandate to demand better working conditions, particularly regarding employee salaries.
“All Quebec carrier contracts have been improved, including those of the employer by more than 30% since 2021-2022. The government was clear: to counter the numerous service breakdowns which leave children without transport to their school, part of these sums had to be used to pay better salaries,” said Ms.me Laplante.
If the sums were given to carriers in 2022, the vice-president of the FEESP-CSN, Josée Dubé, denounces the lack of supervision on the part of the government.
“The government did not regulate and did not mark out the way in which carriers could manage money by giving to drivers,” she said in an interview on the show Quebec morning.
“Employers have received the money, they must now give a part of these sums to those who enrich them,” she continued.
The new amounts paid by the government for school transporters in the Lanaudière region in 2022-2023 allowed total increases of 48% at Autobus Terremont Ltée and 45% at Autobus RM.
“There is therefore no reason for the Gaudreault Group not to respond favorably to the demands of its workers, other than to enrich itself at their expense. To put an end to service breakdowns, it takes good salaries,” commented the vice-president of the Central Council of Lanaudière-CSN, Nathalie Chaput, in a press release.
Here is the list of bus routes affected by the strike for the Samares School Service Center.
Watch the interview with Josée Dubé in the video above.
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