All hope seemed possible, but last-minute negotiations in the construction sector struck a pitfall Saturday afternoon.

The provincial government announced today that MNAs have been called back to Quebec City Monday to vote on back-to-work legislation for construction workers striking for a fourth consecutive day.

"Every hour represents around two million dollars of losses for the Quebec government," said Labour Minister Dominique Vien.

She said she was still hopeful that an agreement would be reached by the end of the weekend.

As well, the Labor Alliance announced that it will launch legal proceedings on Monday morning for bad faith negotiations against the Quebec Construction Association and its negotiator, Dominic Proulx.

The negotiations, which began on Friday under the supervision of conciliators appointed by the Labour Ministry, focused on wages, overtime and work-life balance.

Negotiations are not broken between the parties, according to union spokesman Michel Trépanier, during a press conference Saturday afternoon in Montreal. However, he denounced the move to introduce a special law to force the 175,000 construction workers back to work.

The union alleges that the QCA presented a new offer to the employers on Friday evening at the table of the institutional-commercial and industrial sector, which delayed the talks back several weeks since it reintroduced proposals that the homeland Employer had undertaken to withdraw.

QCA spokesperson Éric Côté accused the Trade Union Alliance of acting in "bad faith" in the negotiations, on several occasions.

In a press conference, Côté said that he was surprised by the union union's action and that it was happening at an inappropriate moment.

He pointed out that the Labor Alliance had ample opportunity to accept the employer's initial overall offer, since it was a question of work-life balance. According to Éric Côté, this offer was rejected by the Alliance Syndicale in the minute before the unlimited general strike last Wednesday.

- With files from The Canadian Press