MONTREAL -- Quebec's APTS union will consult its 60,000 members in health and social services on a strike mandate of "no more than 10 days", to be exercised at the appropriate time.
The Alliance of Professional and Technical Staff in Health and Social Services represents laboratory technicians, medical imaging technicians, social workers, psychologists and others, who work in hospitals and youth centres.
APTS members analyze the tests in the laboratories, including COVID-19 tests, and who take x-rays of the lungs, for example.
"If our people do not analyze the COVID tests, well public health does not have figures to put people in the red zone, in the yellow zone, then to adjust the vaccination strategy," warned APTS vice-president Emmanuel Breton.
The general meetings to consult the members will be held as of March 29, when the mediation is over. The result of the votes should be known in mid-May, said Breton.
If a strike were indeed to be called, essential services would have to be maintained.
As the law was amended, the percentage of essential services to be maintained varies depending on the care unit, or the service.
Breton said that negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements with Quebec are stalling.
Its members are all the more frustrated that they are not receiving the COVID-19 premium, like nurses and patient attendants, even if they handle the samples in the laboratory, for example.
-- this report by The Canadian Press was first published March 11, 2021.
