New offer to library workers on strike

The Canadian Institute of Quebec (ICQ) presented on Friday a new “global and final” offer to striking municipal library employees which was immediately described as incomplete by their union.

The offer was submitted to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 501 (UFCW 501) during a meeting held Friday morning.

ICQ hopes that this new offer will allow its team to return to work and restore access to the entire Quebec Library network to citizens”,”text”:”The ICQ hopes that this new offer will allow the return to work of its team and to restore access to the entire network of the Bibliothèque de Québec to citizens”}}”>L’ICQ hopes that this new offer will allow its team to return to work and restore access to the entire network of the Bibliothèque de Québec to citizensdeclared the employer in a press release.

Three months of strike

The organization that administers the 26 municipal libraries of Quebec claims to have multiplied the procedures at all levels to find a solution to the conflict. On Saturday, it will be three months since its 240 employees launched an indefinite general strike.

ICQ […] seeks in good faith to find a solution that takes into account the interests of its unionized staff while keeping in mind the need to ensure sound management of the public funds entrusted to it by the City of Quebec”,”text”: “The ICQ […] seeks in good faith to find a solution that takes into account the interests of its unionized staff while keeping in mind the need to ensure sound management of the public funds entrusted to it by the City of Quebec”}}”>L’ICQ […] seeks in good faith to find a solution that takes into account the interests of its unionized staff while keeping in mind the need to ensure sound management of the public funds entrusted to it by the City of Quebecargued the employer.

Missing information

In an interview with Radio-Canada, the spokesperson for UFCW 501, Roxanne Larouche, confirmed that a new offer had indeed been tabled during Friday’s meeting.

However, she clarified that documents were missing and that theICQ was unable to answer some of the union’s questions.

It was decided that we were going to meet again next week and that there was no question of presenting this offer to our members as long as we did not have answers to these questions- there and said documents to be able to analyze themadded Ms. Larouche.

With the collaboration of Guylaine Bussière