MONTREAL -- Support staff in several French-language school service centres and English-language school boards across the province will be on strike starting Wednesday at 12 p.m.

The strike is expected to last for 24 hours.

In all, 35,000 support staff in 31 French-language school service centres and two English-language school boards, represented by the Fédération des employées et employés de services publics (FEESP-CSN), will walk off the job.

Some of the affected school service centres have chosen to cancel classes all day, while others will offer half-days during the hours not affected by the strike.

According to the union, the strike action is linked to "the Legault government's unwillingness to offer fair and equitable pay conditions to school support staff, as well as its stolid vision of the education sector."

"We didn't want it to come to this, but under the circumstances, we have no choice but to go on strike," said Annie Charland, president of the FEESP-CSN school sector, in a press release.

The issue of salary is a particularly important part of the dispute, as the majority of striking employees earn less than the average Quebec wage, the union notes, adding that many of them juggle broken or part-time schedules. A large number of support staff earn less than $25,000 a year, according to the union.

The union is accusing the Legault government of offering what it says are meagre wage increases to support staff before announcing a $10 billion investment to dig a tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis.

"This is the ultimate demonstration that managing public finances is a matter of choice and right now, by refusing to recognize the crying needs of the networks, the government is choosing to deprive Quebecers of the services to which they are entitled," said Caroline Senneville, vice-president of CSN, in a press release.

A demonstration to mark the start of the school support staff strike is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Montreal.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 26, 2021.