MONTREAL -- CEGEP teachers will be on strike again on May 13.

This strike was voted by the unions affiliated with the CEGEP Teachers' Federation (FEC-CSQ) "because of the stagnation of negotiations for the majority of the 500,000 employees of the State," the union explained in a news release.

FEC-CSQ president Lucie Piché argues that after 18 months of talks with the Comite patronal de négociation des colleges (CPNC) and the Treasury Board, "it is time for a breakthrough at the bargaining tables."

It accuses management of threatening faculty academic freedom and deplores the lack of progress in negotiations on casualization.

According to the union, the investments announced in the last budget "do nothing to improve the conditions of practice in the longer term".

"The government must be consistent with the success agenda it recently consulted us on and give us the means to fully focus on student success for the fall 2021 school year," added Piche.

The FEC-CSQ, which represents about 3,000 teachers in several Quebec CEGEPs, had already held a strike on March 30.

-- this report by The Canadian Press was first published May 2, 2021.