Quebec says discussion forums with unions serve as additional bargaining tables

Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel is now presenting her "discussion forums" in the public sector as real "negotiating tables" with the unions.

In an interview with 98.5 FM host Paul Arcand on Monday, the minister denied any attempts to drown out public sector bargaining with her three discussion forums, held in parallel to the actual negotiations. The unions refuse to attend.

These three forums - "team class," "team mental health" and "team care" -- are legitimate "bargaining tables," just like the other bargaining tables the unions agree to attend, she argued, referring to these forums as "an added central table."

Public sector unions refused to participate in these forums in 2020, and they refused again this time around. In 2020, they renewed collective agreements for 2020-2023 without participating in these forums.

The unions see these forums as a means of drowning out the issues in endless discussions when they say the problems are already understood. In their view, it's high time to negotiate clauses in the collective agreements to address these issues.

"This is a place for negotiation; we must understand each other," said Lebel. "We are creating a place next to it. We can call it an added central table."

In these forums, she wants to bring unions in the same field together, even if they have different demands relative to their collective agreements and different solutions to problems raised.

"I won't have two ways of doing this," said LeBel. "They're going to have to come to an agreement together."

Nurses, for example, are represented primarily by the FIQ, but also by the CSQ, CSN and FTQ.

Meanwhile, in education, the CSQ represents both elementary and secondary teachers, support staff and professionals, while the FAE represents teachers only. The unions' vision and priorities are therefore not always the same.

These discussion forums constitute "an added central table" to bargaining, said the minister, who criticized the fact that there are already 20 bargaining tables in the health sector alone.

The collective agreements covering approximately 600,000 government employees expire on March 31.

To date, the pace of negotiations is rather slow, many unions say.  

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French by The Canadian Press on Feb. 27, 2023.