One of Quebec's largest nursing unions is taking the Quebec government to court.
Ministerial Order 071 was presented during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to offer bonuses to nurses. However, FIQ (Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé) consultant Sophie Guilbault argues that it was done without ever having negotiated with the union and that it thwarted several clauses of the FIQ collective agreement, which was just concluded.
Guilbault said as much in testimony before the Administrative Labour Tribunal on Tuesday.
Judge Myriam Bédard is hearing the FIQ's obstruction of union activities and bad faith bargaining complaints against the Quebec government in connection with Ministerial Order 2021-071. Other health-care unions have also filed obstruction complaints.
The basic problem is that the FIQ spent a year-and-a-half negotiating the collective agreement of its 76,000 members, and was being told that the government had run out of money and had offered the maximum amount that it could.
After having succeeded, with great difficulty, in reaching an agreement in principle and having it ratified by its members in Aug. 2021, it was with astonishment and dismay that union members heard the Legault government say at a news conference that it was ready to inject $1 billion into various measures to attract nurses and encourage them to work full time.
"Never, ever, ever did they mention this to us during the negotiations," Guilbault testified in court.
-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Feb. 22, 2022.
