In October 2025, the passing of Bill 101, An Act to improve certain labour laws, created significant inequalities in the working conditions of workers in the healthcare and education sectors, which are predominantly female. As a result of this Act, thousands of men, but above all women, have seen their rights in the area of occupational health and safety trampled upon. One year later, the Federation is continuing the fight tirelessly and stepping up its efforts to turn the situation around. In particular, it sits on a strategic committee alongside other labour organizations and Santé Québec, and is a member of an inter-union committee on An Act to modernize the occupational health and safety regime (LMRSST) thanks to a letter of understanding in the collective agreement.

Is it normal that a construction worker and a healthcare professional, both exposed to significant risks to their health and safety, do not have access to the same prevention mechanisms or that healthcare professionals, exposed every day to risks of violence, injury or exhaustion, cannot rely on the active involvement of a health and safety representative and a functioning health and safety committee? The answer is no. Healthcare professionals should have access to OHS prevention and participation mechanisms adapted to the scope and nature of the risks to which they are exposed. A sector where employment injuries and incidents of violence are so numerous that they cannot be satisfied with less. Prevention must be stepped up, and healthcare professionals must be given effective tools to identify risks, tackle their root causes and have a say in decisions affecting their health and safety.

A summary of the facts

On October 6, 2021, An Act to modernize the occupational health and safety regime (LMRSST) went into effect. Thanks to this Act, healthcare professionals, like many other workers, should benefit from significant improvements in OHS. This reform must, in particular, put an end to a two-tier prevention system by gradually extending mandatory prevention and participation mechanisms to all workplaces. This development is particularly significant for sectors with a predominantly female workforce, such as healthcare and education, which have historically not been subject to the same prevention requirements. The phased roll-out of the reform must ensure that, by October 6, 2025, all sectors of activity are subject to the same prevention and participation mechanisms.

On April, 24, 2025, the Minister of Labour announced his intention to implement new legislation (Bill 101) aimed at improving, in his view, certain labour laws.

On May 29, 2025, even though it had been excluded from the private consultations and public hearings on Bill 101, the FIQ submitted a brief at the Commission de l’économie et du travail (Committee on Economic Affairs and Labour).

On October 23, 2025, the passing of Bill 101 re-introduced the disparity in the occupational health and safety prevention and participation mechanisms, affecting mainly predominantly female jobs in the healthcare and education sectors.

A few statistics

In 2023, healthcare and education sector workers accounted for 35.7% of all recognized employment injuries in Québec, even though they made up only 19.2% of the total workforce.

This disparity highlights a worrying reality: workers in these sectors are disproportionately exposed to the risk of employment injuries.

In 2025, while healthcare and education workers accounted for 47% of full-time equivalent (FTE) workers covered by the le regime, they accounted for 71.8% of injuries attributable to violence.

In the healthcare sector alone, the number of violence-related injuries rose by 34% between 2021 and 2025, from 1,994 to 2,686 cases.

This data clearly shows that healthcare professionals need more prevention, and certainly not less robust mechanisms.