While a disagreement is currently taking place between the City of Saint-Charles-Borromée and its firefighters after the expiry of the collective agreement in 2023, the Lanaudière municipality presented its version of the facts following the exit of the Quebec Firefighters Union last week.
First of all, the mayor of Saint-Charles-Borromée, Robert Bibeau, wanted to reassure the population by indicating that the municipality’s fire services operate 24 hours a day, even if the guard is not carried out by people full time.
The magistrate adds that it is not because there is no permanent firefighter between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. that this means that citizens are not served, because a team on duty is ready to respond to calls.
This point thus contradicts what the Union had put forward since it had indicated in a press release that there were no firefighters in the station during this period for the entire territory served by the City of Saint-Charles-Borromée .
The union organization also made a comparison with the fact that the citizens of Joliette and Notre-Dame-des-Prairies, a smaller location, have benefited from a complete 24/7 presence in the barracks for several decades.
-The Bibeau administration let it be known that good collaboration existed between the camps throughout the negotiations, that both camps tabled proposals, but that the Union indicated that it wanted to go to mediation.
The talks have been taking place intensively since the beginning of April 2024.
It should be noted that the firefighters of the Saint-Charles-Borromée Fire and Civil Security Service are also distributed in around ten municipalities covering an area of 450km2.
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