The President of the Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, took everyone by surprise Wednesday morning by announcing her intention to review the current model of collective agreement negotiations in the public sector which has not been revised for 40 years.
How do the unions receive this news?
Host Philippe Cantin discusses it with Éric Gingras, president of the Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ).
Is Ms. LeBel right and is the negotiation model broken in the public sector?
“I wouldn’t say broken. I would say that there is room for modernization, because that is ultimately the term she used at the beginning. Yes, indeed, it needs to be modernized. I think there are places where we can do it. Then she still announced things that she would table, in particular, and that was perhaps a little overlooked. But, it must be said, the fact that there will be no raiding imposed on health with the arrival of Santé Québec… What she is saying is that with this bill, she will rework what needs to be reworked on seniority, etc., but that we will not force raiding which would have harmed the level of stability. We wouldn’t have needed that. But for the rest, she was still evasive.
“Now, if you ask me, there is room to modernize, of course. But here you have to be careful. It is not because the government found it difficult the last time that it wants to change the rules of the game to make it easier for it. There is still a balance to be had.”
Swiss
