(Montreal) The APTS regains hope, timidly, following its meeting with the president of the Conseil du trésor, Sonia LeBel. The union organization will finally relaunch its negotiations … while remaining on its guard.
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Lia Levesque
The Canadian Press
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In an interview Thursday after the meeting, the acting president of the Alliance of professional and technical personnel in health and social services, Robert Comeau, recalled that its members were furious after the announcement of bonuses for nurses only.
“We were scalded,” he says. To say that the negotiations will resume is one thing, to see the concrete result is another. “Everything is in the following,” he says.
“The level of confidence is there”, but it is “thin”, he hastens to add.
The APTS represents 60,000 members who work in health establishments, in medical imaging, in laboratory analyzes, for example, as well as in youth centers.
The APTS was therefore irritated when it learned that the Legault government was ready to spend $ 1 billion on bonuses for nurses and the hiring of administrative agents to lighten their tasks.
Its dissatisfaction was such that it had interrupted the consultation of its 60,000 members on the Quebec offer – which it did not however consider as an agreement in principle, but which nevertheless contained progress, in its eyes.
She had therefore requested a meeting with Minister LeBel, which she obtained on Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Comeau agrees that Minister LeBel had “a good listening” and that he was able to express “the distress” of its members, their “frustration, their anger following the announcement of bonuses for nurses” only.
He explained to him why the Quebec offer could no longer be presented to its members to vote, given this new context.
The APTS is therefore relaunching its negotiations with Quebec, hoping to obtain more for its members than the June offer on which they had started to vote.
Will the APTS specifically claim bonuses? Its demands in this new context have not yet been established, responds Mr. Comeau.
“We clearly said, all the same, that we are looking for a certain fairness in all of this. We are not looking for the same thing that nurses have had, but measures adapted to the problems experienced by our members, ”explained Mr. Comeau.
The APTS still has its strike mandate in its pocket. Its members went on strike on June 7 and 8, as well as on June 21 and 22. He therefore has six days of bank strike left.
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