The next collective agreement should be for 3 years according to the government’s current proposal. The length will be confirmed at the signing of the agreement on intersectoral matters, i.e., salary, retirement, parental rights and regional disparities.

Once we have more healthcare professionals with full-time positions we will be able to truly stabilize teams, reduce the workload, facilitate access to days off and reduce MOT. To be attractive, the positions must be stable, advantageous, and facilitate work-personal life balance. Full-time positions also provide better financial security now and in retirement.

There will be three upgrading periods and two posting periods during the term of the collective agreement. The first upgrading and posting period will take place within 60 days after the collective agreement comes into effect.

Not at all. Upgrading to full-time will only happen on a voluntary basis. The employer will not be able to post part-time positions until these targets are met. The government has agreed to maintain the specified percentage of full-time positions. The full-time position targets are set at 80% in CHSLDs, the emergency department, in obstetrical units, and at 70% in other centres of activities. There will always be a certain percentage of part-time positions, but with this agreement, professionals will see the benefits of having a full-time position.

• A doubled weekend premium (from 4% to 8%) for full-time positions.
• Greater flexibility for taking a leave in the event of a death.
• Doubled employer contribution for basic prescription drug insurance.
• Voluntary staggering of work hours to promote work-family-study balance.
• Access to organization of work time after 3 years of seniority for day shifts, without restrictions for employees on the evening and night shifts.
• A compensated 37.5-hour work week that is eligible for RREGOP for all employees who work in CLSCs and in northern clinics. This represents up to a 7.14% pay increase.
• A reduction in the work overload through greater access to full-time positions and added staff (1,000 in CHSLDs and 500 in 24/7, including medicine and surgery).

Nurses

• Automatic reclassification at all times for nurses with bachelor’s degrees to the job title of nurse clinician.

Specialty nurse practitioners

• Paid 40-hour work week.
• Salary retroactivity for SNPCs to the date of their exam.
• Provincial budget dedicated to training and skill development.

Licensed practical nurses

• End of job insecurity.
• Increase in full-time positions in CHSLDs.
• Increase in full-time positions in 24/7 centres.

Respiratory therapists

• A paid 37.5-hour work week that is admissible for RREGOP for respiratory therapists in 24/7 centres or on 2 different continuous work shifts, and in CLSCs.

Clinical perfusionists

• A paid 37.5-hour work week that is eligible for RREGOP.
• An added 10% supervision and training premium for those who supervise at least 4 clinical perfusionists.

There will be a 37.5-hour work week for clinical perfusionists and respiratory therapists who work in 24/7 centres of activities or on two different continuous shifts, and for all healthcare professionals who work in CLSCs and northern clinics. The added 2.5 hours per week will be eligible for RREGOP and represent more care hours for patients. These hours are often already worked but not paid. This represents up to a 7.14% pay increase.

• A doubled weekend premium (from 4% to 8%) for full-time employees in 24/7 units.
• A specific critical care premium for obstetrical care units (mother-child) where care is provided 24/7.
• A critical care premium for employees conducting aeromedical evacuation transfers.
• A 10% premium for clinical perfusionists who supervise the clinical work of at least 4 clinical perfusionists and who participate in their training.
• A premium for healthcare professionals who work in CHSLDs and EPCs. The premium will be the same level for all network employees.

The tentative agreement that the FIQ and FIQP delegates adopted on December 8, 2020 deals with sectoral matters, meaning it deals with healthcare professionals’ working conditions. Salary, retirement, parental rights and regional disparities are all included in intersectoral matters, which are being negotiated at the central table in alliance with the APTS. Generally, the intersectoral agreement is reached a few weeks after the sectoral agreement.

The two organizations’ teams are working together on negotiating intersectoral matters, which should speed up in the coming weeks. The government has been totally silent on this topic since last summer.

By having more people working full time, there will be more healthcare professionals available to do the different tasks and thus reduce everyone’s workload. Working full time gives several monetary benefits, in addition to the premium, that a part-time employee does not get, including the calculation of the pension annuity.

Full time will stabilize the work teams and reduce overtime, mandatory or not, and workload. This will improve well-being at work. It will take effort from everyone and the best way to motivate that effort is by adding a premium. The FIQ and FIQP are proposing a premium of 12% for incumbents of full-time positions or assignments. The goal is to convert this premium into a paid day off, which would be the employee’s choice.

This demand aims to create quality full-time positions without rotation in a single site.

Yes, the premium is paid to all employees incumbents of full-time positions or assignments, regardless of their shift.

For several years, the FIQ has talked about the ratios as one of the preferred solutions to resolve the problems in the health network, by reducing the workload. The impact of the COVID-19 crisis in the CHSLDs only worsened a situation that was already unacceptable. The staff shortage and grossly deficient healthcare professional-to-patient ratios have undeniably contributed to the high rate of people with COVID-19 in CHSLDs, both staff and residents. Without talking about the residents’ mortality rate. Therefore, let’s quickly begin with gradually rolling out the ratios in CHSLDs. Then roll them out in emergency departments and medicine-surgery. The key word is gradually. Let’s begin now.

The objective of implementing safe ratios through a law remains a FIQ and FIQP demand. That is the best way to ensure the respect of ratios everywhere and at all times.

By standardizing the workweek, the number of hours the healthcare professionals care for patients rises. For many, this work time is already done by shortening their break times and meal periods. By recognizing these hours in the basic salary, they can be recognized in pension calculation. For many healthcare professionals, this means fair recognition of the work they do, particularly for respiratory therapists or healthcare professionals working in a CLSC. It also facilitates implementing safe ratios and increases the compensation of the healthcare professionals involved.

It is also a measure of fairness for all our healthcare professionals and facilitates schedule management, as everyone works on the same hourly basis.

No. The objective of the negotiations is that all healthcare professionals work 7.5 hours a day instead of 7 hours or 7.25 hours. This measure affects as many incumbents of full-time positions as those who work part time. It will raise the number of hours of care given to patients, while recognizing the work done.

Healthcare professionals want to work in a safe work environment. It is their physical and psychological health at stake. Therefore, preventive measures need to be put in place now, especially in remote regions. The healthcare professionals have waited 40 years and we don’t understand why the CNESST is incapable of moving. The COVID-19 crisis only aggravated this already existing problem. An Act respecting occupational health and safety must be fully applicable to our sector, like in the construction sector, for example.

It is currently the institution’s choice to supply or not a uniform. By making this demand, the FIQ and FIQP are ensuring consistency in the practices across the health and social services network.

The FIQ and FIQP demand is that the employer reimburse the fees. The terms of this reimbursement will be determined in the next phase.

The demands made by the FIQ and FIQP replace and improve what currently exists in a letter of understanding in the collective agreement. The amounts set out in the letters of understanding have not achieved the objective of attraction and retention and are not sufficient. This is the reason for the FIQ and FIQP demand to implement a premium of 8% for all employees who work in a CHSLD or with clientele presenting severe behaviour disorders (SBD). This premium would be included in the collective agreement.

With a 37.5-hour week for everyone, there will be 30 more minutes of care a day for the healthcare professionals in home support. That will, for example, allow one more patient to be seen or complete various follow-ups and thus better balance the workload over the week.

Ending the obligation for a nurse clinician to work 40 hours a week before being paid overtime will resolve this problem. Moreover, implementing 37.5 hours for everyone means everyone will be paid overtime after the regular workweek.

Contrary to what the government claims, healthcare professionals do not have the latitude to manage their schedule as they want. In reality, it is difficult for them to take back their overtime hours and this does not add any care hours.

There is currently a problem in applying the rotation premium. This is the reason why one of the FIQ sectoral demands is to simplify the application of this premium so that more healthcare professionals can benefit from it.

With the purpose of correcting a long-standing problem, the FIQ and FIQP are demanding that an employee in the health and social services network who becomes a CPNP or CPLPNP cannot be paid a lower salary than that she was paid in her former job title. Therefore, it will be beneficial for a beneficiary attendant following a licensed practical nurse course to become a CPLPNP and be able to use the new skills she will have acquired.

Based on the principle of fairness and with the purpose of recognizing the academic fair value and contribution of nurse clinicians in northern clinics, the FIQ is demanding the creation of new job titles of assistant-head-nurse in a northern clinic, nurse clinician in a northern clinic and nurse clinician assistant-head-nurse in a northern clinic.

Both of our organizations represent professionals and technicians who provide public care, the majority of whom are female. They have common interests and can therefore more easily identify joint demands. What’s more, the sheer number of members it brings together (131,000) represents over half of the employees in the health and social services network. This alliance is advantageous because it gives us stronger bargaining power with the government, as well as to improve salary and working conditions.

Yes. In order to support the intersectoral work, the two organizations must use the same pressure tactics at the same time. Each organization’s negotiation structure must approve the joint pressure tactics.

The Labour Code stipulates that collective agreements must be for a three-year period. The union submission and our demands comply with this requirement.

At the bargaining table, there will be representatives from both organizations, including one spokesperson from each organization.

It has been quite a year for the healthcare professionals at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 while they are negotiating the renewal of their collective agreement. The negotiation of the provincial collective agreement must be seen as an opportunity to begin rebuilding the network, shaken by the crisis, on solid ground. Now is the time to resolve the problems that healthcare professionals have denounced for years.

With the measures proposed by the FIQ and FIQP, the network will have a chance to recover from the disaster caused by the COVID-19 crisis. The FIQ and FIQP are proposing to add clauses on prevention of infections, insisting on prevention mechanisms in occupational health and safety and are proposing to begin implementing ratios in CHSLDs, the hardest hit areas by the COVID-19 crisis. The government has to take advantage of the opportunity offered to stop the haemorrhage in the health network, while more and more healthcare professionals are thinking about leaving their jobs.

Everything begins with a negotiation project, which includes the FIQ and FIQP’s two priorities: health and safety at all levels and attraction-retention of healthcare professionals in the network. This project is the result itself of consultations with the members. Then, the project is adopted based on the situation – the context of negotiations, current events, and economic reality – with the collaboration of the union reps elected to the Negotiating Committee and representatives from each FIQ and FIQP affiliated union, who make up the Council of Negotiations.

Yes, the 76,000 FIQ and FIQP members will benefit from the key measures. Think about the demand to standardize the workweek at 37.5 hours for everyone and the 12% premium for incumbents of full-time positions or assignments. The demands are made in such a way that all job titles represented by the FIQ and FIQP can reap the benefits.

It is a joint union party and employer party working committee on specific questions and issues, defined at the time the collective agreement is signed. For the sectoral matters, the FIQ and FIQP are demanding the creation of such a committee to discuss updating the collective agreement, reviewing the dispute-resolving mechanisms, including grievances, and ensuring that the collective agreement provides for adequate duty of representation.

Obviously, the FIQ and FIQP are aware that Québec is dealing with a difficult economic period. However, doing nothing will also cost a lot, from both a human and economic point of view. Just look at the example of cuts in public health that have weakened Québec’s response to COVID-19. Are we ready to face a second wave of COVID-19? To face the challenge of an ageing population? It is a collective choice of being able to count on a health network in which all Quebecers can be proud.

Improving the healthcare professionals’ working conditions means improving the quality and safety of patient care. Our members want time with their patients and conditions for giving good care, to do a good job.