MONTREAL – The long fight of the FIQ against the nursing placement agencies is going back to square one, while the Court of Appeal has just rejected the appeal of the union organization in this context.
The Interprofessional Health Federation, which represents 76,000 nurses, nursing assistants and respiratory therapists, has complained for years about the use of nurse placement agencies, because of the disparities in treatment that result for its members.
The FIQ therefore complained to the Administrative Labor Tribunal, where it won its case in 2016 and 2017.
The court then ruled that a CIUSSS (Integrated University Health and Social Services Center) which uses an agency nurse becomes, in practice, its employer and that the nurse is thus subject to the union accreditation certificate of the FIQ.
The president of the FIQ at the time, Régine Laurent, applauded these court decisions, which she saw as a victory establishing more equity between nurses, more justice and offering more stable care teams to the nurses. patients.
Contesting these court decisions, agencies and CIUSSS appealed to the Superior Court.
In February 2020, the Superior Court quashed the decisions of the Administrative Labor Tribunal, finding them “unreasonable”.
The FIQ therefore turned to the Court of Appeal. It has just rejected its appeal and returned the file to the Administrative Labor Tribunal “so that the case may be heard again, according to the applicable legal principles and in the light of relevant evidence that the parties may kindly agree to. submit as to the applicable criteria ”.
The Court of Appeal underlined that the collective agreement of the FIQ “explicitly provides for the possibility for the employer to resort to external resources when the offer of services cannot be filled by the employees subject to the accreditation certificate”.
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