FIQ accepts conciliator's recommendation to renew collective agreement

Quebec's labour tribunal has stymied the latest negotiation tactic of the province's largest nurses union, whose members have been without a contract for more than 500 days. Quebec health-care workers and members from the Quebec’s nurses union (FIQ) demonstrate to demand a new contract negotiation in Montreal, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi)

Nurses and other Quebec health-care workers voted 66.3 per cent in favour of a conciliator's recommendation to renew their collective agreement after several months of negotiations with the provincial government.

Of the roughly 80,000 members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), the union indicated in a social media post that 75 per cent of them voted electronically.

The result had been eagerly awaited after members rejected an agreement in principle by 61 per cent last April.

The vote began at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, following a series of information meetings on the content of the conciliator's proposal over several weeks.

A victim of its own success, the voting platform experienced a few technical glitches when it opened on Tuesday, due to the influx of members rushing to exercise their right to vote. The situation has since improved.

The agreement in principle, despite being recommended by the FIQ, had not been approved by the members last April mainly because of the clauses concerning the mobility expected of nurses.

Employers in the network want to be able to move nurses from one care unit to another or even from one institution to another as needed. But nurses see this as a way of denying their expertise and treating them as interchangeable pawns, in addition to undermining the monitoring and quality of care.

Since the rejection of the agreement in principle, this mobility requirement has been more clearly defined during the conciliation discussions, in the hope that this reorganization would satisfy the FIQ members. Now that the conciliator's recommendation was accepted, it will become the FIQ's new collective agreement.

If the members had rejected it, the parties would have had to return to the bargaining table. The collective agreement expired on March 31, 2023.

FIQ members had already held a few days of walkouts while providing essential services in November and December 2023.

The FIQ represents most nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists in Quebec's health-care institutions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 17, 2024.