MONTREAL -- Quebec schools will again be affected by a strike on Wednesday, this time by the 10,000 education professionals of the CSQ.
Speech therapists, psychologists, psychoeducators and guidance counsellors that will go on strike work in almost all French school service centres and English, Cree and Kativik school boards.
The walkout will take place in the morning only.
Several of the affected school service centres have already announced that there will be no school in the morning.
It should be noted that the education professionals in Laval, Terrebonne and Repentigny are not unionized with the CSQ, but with a union affiliated with the FTQ.
The FTQ has reached an agreement in principle with Quebec on the renewal of its collective agreements. Its unions are therefore not affected by this walkout.
The education professionals federation, which represents them, is announcing a "mystery strike", in the sense that it is not revealing in advance which schools it will actually picket. That decision is up to the local unions, not the federation.
In an interview Tuesday, Jacques Landry, president of the CSQ-affiliated federation, insisted that strikers will not block access to high schools where there is vaccination against COVID-19, nor to schools where there are emergency childcare services.
"We made some progress about two weeks ago, but now it's much more dead," said Landry.
Points of contention remain, notably for psychologists, who do not benefit from the same premiums as their counterparts working in the health sector, and who are paid significantly less than in the private sector.
A dispute also remains for remedial educators.
"Negotiations with the Quebec government are ongoing. There are exchanges, but they are not as active as they once were," Landry said.
At the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, the federation representing teachers has reached an agreement in principle on their working conditions, but not those of professionals or school support workers.
HEALTH-CARE WORKERS STRIKE
Tuesday was the second consecutive day of strikes at the APTS, the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la sante et des services sociaux.
The APTS, which represents 60,000 technicians and professionals in youth centres and health institutions, is the first union organization to strike in the health and social services sector.
It represents medical imaging technicians, laboratory technicians, psychologists and social workers, for example.
On Tuesday, the APTS specified that negotiations with Quebec were still continuing.
The Alliance must take stock of the situation with its members. It has already announced two other days of walkout, on June 21 and 22.
-- this report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 8, 2021.
