Quebec public servants on the verge of strike mandate

Union leaders stand in front of a banner as they demonstrate, Wednesday, November 25, 2020 in Quebec City. Eight major union leaders and workers gathered near the Quebec legislature asking the Quebec government to negotiate. From the left first row, Sonia Ethier of the CSQ,. Line Lamarre of the SPGQ, Andree Poirier of the APTS, Nancy Bedard of the FIQ, second row, Daniel Boyer of the FTQ, Sylvain Mallette of the FAE, Jacques Letourneau of the CSN and Christian Daigle of the SFPQ. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

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Public servants are ready to strike if the Legault government refuses their demands.

On the eve of a meeting with management, Quebec's public servants' union (SFPQ) president Christian Daigle is confident that his members will give him a strike mandate shortly.

The outcome of the consultations that are underway in the union bodies will be known next week, but Daigle said Tuesday he has seen the anger of members who are mobilized.

"I'm confident that our members will give us a mandate to say, 'We're not happy, we want you to go further and we'll start pressure tactics if we have to,'" he said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press. "There's no one who wants to lose their salary by going on strike, that's for sure, but if that's the only way to get our demands across to Mr. (Francois) Legault and Ms. (Sonia) LeBel (Treasury Board President), we'll be forced to do it."

The union said that negotiations with management have made little progress since last July.

Without elaborating specifically on the wage demands, the SFPQ president is demanding a wage catch-up comparable to what has been agreed to in the health and education sectors.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 1, 2022.