It must be said that the inflation of recent months has stimulated the appetite of workers who, in many cases, have turned up their noses at offers of a 1.5 or 2% hike. And in the context of recruiting difficulties, employers have had no choice but to grant higher raises to keep employees and avoid labor disputes.
For example, at the FTQ-affiliated Steelworkers union, workers at the Raglan mine will receive wage increases of 6.8% the first year, 3.5% for the next two years and 3% for the next two years.
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Another example: At Olymel of Yamachiche and Saint-Esprit, the salary of members of the FTQ-affiliated United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) increased by 18.16% to $20.50 at the end of the year. . The maximum wage is reached after four months, at $22.85 an hour.
SMEs, which have more limited means, have had no choice but to give even larger raises, retain their staff or attract them, François Vincent, vice president for Quebec of the Canada Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) admitted in an interview. ).
“Wage increases have never been bigger, if you look at the data from the Business Barometer. There was a decline at the start of the pandemic, and then there was a pretty significant increase. There it tends to recover, but it’s still at higher levels than it has been in the last 10 years,” Vincent said.
Terms relating to the CPI
Beyond the increases themselves, the unions are trying more to negotiate inflation protection clauses to defend themselves from the phenomenon experienced in recent months.
We see this particularly in the public sector in Quebec, where the inter-union common front is demanding, for the next collective agreements, the equivalent of the consumer price index plus 2% for the first year, the CPI plus 3% for the second year and CPI plus 4% for the third year.
Telecommuting required
Another trend on the labor market in 2022: teleworking, if not work in hybrid mode.
Many employees enjoyed working from home when health measures related to COVID-19 were put in place. They weren’t at all thrilled about going back to work in a noisy, crowded and busy office.
The unions therefore began to claim the “right” to telework and the labor market had to adapt.
In Loto-Quebec, for example, members of the Quebec Government Professionals Union (SPGQ) are only required to be on the job four days a month.
At the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ), the general president, Christian Daigle, said he believed that “teleworking is here to stay. We cannot do otherwise. Elsewhere, in several companies, people see an advantage in telecommuting; therefore it becomes an interesting working condition”.
The SFPQ represents thousands of government employees in departments and agencies. “Currently our people are forced to be present in the office two days out of five. For us, we don’t see the point in being present two days out of five in the office. It makes no sense to have an obligation. There could be five days of teleworking and that would not change anything in the delivery of services to citizens,” said Daigle.
Referring to downtown Montreal, Mr. Vincent of the CFIB concludes: “I could tell you that Monday and Friday is like we are on vacation. There begins to be a return to the office to stimulate teamwork, two days, sometimes three days a week. The days of Tuesday through Thursday, we will look for an influx that we had before COVID. But yes, teleworking and hybrid models seem to be well extended within companies,” he confirmed.
public sectors
The year 2022 also saw the birth of a new common front in the public and parapublic sectors in Quebec, with the CSQ, the CSN, the FTQ and the APTS (Alliance of professional and technical personnel in health and social services). However, the main federation of nurses’ unions, the FIQ, is not a member. Negotiations will start after the holidays.
Also at the federal level, negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements in the public sector have been relaunched with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
labor disputes
The year was also marked by several major labor disputes, including that of engineers employed by the Quebec government. The strike by APIGQ members caused delays for several construction sites, but an agreement was finally reached between the parties last summer.
Similarly, the Quebec Cannabis Society (SQDC) has been affected since May 28 by a strike by workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), affiliated with the FTQ, in about twenty branches.
