“I’m going to be in the street!” I lose my house, I lose everything! » Lahcene Lehchili, 53, can’t sleep anymore. For 20 years, the CHSLD administrative agent has held two full-time positions in two health establishments in Montreal. With the arrival of a single employer, Santé Québec, he is forced to make a choice.
Published at 5:00 a.m.
“They cut my salary in half! », Says the father of four children. “I have a mortgage to pay. I have bills. I don’t have a plan B.”
Every morning at 5 a.m., Lahcene Lehchili leaves her house in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, in the Laurentians, to go to work in a Montreal CHSLD from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. He must then quickly go to his second shift in the CHSLD, which begins at 3:30 p.m. and ends at 10:30 p.m.
“My life is based on these two jobs,” he says.
The administrative agent earns $25 per hour. His wife works two or three days a week at minimum wage.
Lahcene Lehchili has until Thursday to decide whether he keeps his position at the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal or that of the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. He would like to continue working 70 hours a week.
I am not asking to be paid overtime. Just to let me work, support my children.
Lahcene Lehchili, administrative agent
According to Santé Québec, 3,034 employees of the public health network are in a situation of “dual employment”. The “majority of them” will be able to keep their two positions, “since the number of hours of their two positions combined does not exceed the equivalent of a full-time position”, explains the spokesperson for the agency , Jean-Nicolas Aubé.
But 1307 will have to abandon one by the 1stis December. “Of the 1,307, it is expected that 450 will have a transition period to avoid compulsory overtime or service disruptions,” he indicates.
A “meticulous” analysis is underway to “maintain care for the population while respecting our budgets,” specifies Mr. Aubé.
No more overtime required?
Sandy Roy considers it “aberrational” to have to stop working at the CHU de Québec – Université Laval because she has a full-time daytime position in a CLSC at the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale.
Specializing in high-risk pregnancies, the 38-year-old nurse completed, every two weeks, two to four evening shifts on weekends at the University Hospital, where she worked from 2007 to 2021. She was paid “at a simple rate”, she specifies.
They want more mobility. We are mobilizing to go elsewhere and they tell us that it is no longer correct.
Sandy Roy, nurse
Sandy Roy believes that she “brought a breath of fresh air” to her colleagues who were forced to work mandatory overtime (TSO) when there was a shortage of staff. “There, it will be the same girls who will have to stay in TSO,” she explains. As soon as there’s a bit of a crowd in the delivery room, it doesn’t take long for your turn to return. »
Sandy Roy finds it “sad” not to be able to put his “expertise” to good use, which also allowed him to make ends meet.
“I am very hardworking”
Mirna Chamoum also admits to being “disappointed” to have to leave the Gingras-Lindsay-de-Montreal Rehabilitation Institute, where she has worked for 17 years. The 54-year-old nurse chose to keep her full-time evening position in a CLSC at the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, rather than her night shift at the rehabilitation center under the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud -from-the-Island-of-Montreal.
The Lebanese native, who immigrated to Quebec in 2004, had two jobs since a divorce in 2014. “I am very hardworking,” assures the mother of one. I have never been sick. Never late. »
She now faces the “unknown.” “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Will I lose my seniority? Will I still have the chance to work in this rehabilitation center? »
A requested transition
The president of the Federation of Health and Social Services, Réjean Leclerc, deplores that “low earners” knew “within a few weeks notice” that they would have to regularize their “dual employment” situation. He suggests that Quebec set up a “transition committee” for 30 to 60 days to allow people to “change direction”.
Denis Cloutier, president of the Union of Healthcare Professionals of the East Island of Montreal, considers it “unfortunate” that workers find themselves in this situation.
He struggles to measure the impact of the end of double employment in his establishment. He explains that “in certain cases, people in dual employment were no longer working in one of the two positions”, since the collective agreement allowed them to work temporarily in a health establishment, while maintaining their employment relationship with another. . These vacant positions could be filled by a replacement or not.
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