What to Think of the New Collective Agreement in Residential Construction?

After nearly two months of a strike that saw Quebec's residential construction sector embroiled in a tense conflict, 83.4% of voting members of the Alliance syndicale de la construction have voted in favour of a new agreement. While it goes into action on July 27th, negotiations aren't finished and the most consequential part of this labour dispute is yet to come.

Similar to the ones concluded in the industry's three other sectors, the residential agreement includes a notable 8% salary increase for the first year. But the increases for the other three years of the agreement will be resolved in the fall through arbitration, with the negotiation parameters being set between an 18% and a 24.35% salary increase over the course of the entire agreement.  

The arbitration clause was a last-ditch compromise on the part of the Alliance Syndicale in the face of what they claim was bad-faith negotiation on the part of the APCHQ - the employer's association of the residential sector. The result of arbitration has the potential to widen an already large salary gap between the residential sector and all other sectors, but Jean-Luc Deveaux, a former negotiator in the industry, thinks it was the best decision given the context. 

"In the current context of the balance of power in the Alliance syndicale, strategically they have made a good decision." He said during an interview with North Star. Deveaux was a negotiator in the industry since 2007 and up until the previous round of negotiations from 2021-2025, during which he was on the central committee of the Alliance syndicale. He is now no longer affiliated with the Alliance.

"The Alliance, was in a new type of strike.... All the previous strikes had taken place in the four sectors - Civil Engineering & Highways (GCV), Industrial-Commercial, Institutional (IC/I) and Residential.

The three other sectors concluded their agreements relatively painlessly in early April, surprising many, as Deveaux explains: "There was a dramatic turn of events during the 2025-2029 negotations, the ACQ, the employers' association for the Institutional-Commercial and Industrial sectors, immediately accepted the salary demands of the Alliance syndicale."

"The ACQ's objective was simple. In the context of a labour shortage and to recruit workers, they decided to offer better wage conditions. This strategy will enable the ACQ to poach workers from the other employers' associations. The ACQ's strategy for the IC/I sectors has forced another employers' association, in the GCV sector, to follow suit. The ACQ's strategy took everyone in the construction industry by surprise."

As surprising for him as it may be to hear about bosses backstabbing each other, Deveaux explains that this had a very real effect on the balance of power that the Alliance had in the following labour dispute in the residential sector.

"Since 2007, all strikes have mobilised workers from the 4 sectors of the construction industry. So the Alliance's strike experience was largely due to the mobilisation of the GCV-IC/I sectors... So the balance of power needed to mobilise a strike movement was easier to achieve."

"However, when you no longer have the balance of power, coming from the GCV-IC/I sectors, the context changes. The labour movement in the construction industry clearly wasn't ready for the level of strike action in the residential sector." 

Act R-20 and it's impacts on the strike

Quebec's construction industry is subject to its own separate labour code called Act R-20, which has regulated and provided the framework for labour relations in the industry since 1968. The Act was controversially modernised by Francois Legault's CAQ government last year in the form of Bill 51, which has been called a pro-boss bill by unions. They claim that the bill seeks to de-regulate the industry in the pursuit of "flexibility and productivity". 

While this was the first negotiations since the modernisation of the Act, it was clauses previous to Bill 51 that proved to be the most consequential on the strike. Deveaux explains that even during a strike or a lockout in the industry, the labour code continues to apply. 

"Act R-20 has no clause against replacement workers. So, during a strike, you have strikers and other workers who continue to do their jobs on the worksites."

He continues "Article 31.02 of the collective agreement for the residential sector states that working conditions are a minimum. Therefore, an employer can grant a higher salary than that provided for in the collective agreement."

So while the 2021-2025 collective agreement stipulates that a journeyman carpenter should be making $40.16 an hour in the light residential sector (buildings of 1-4 stories), many residential workers reported that their employers were already paying them a salary equal to the IC/I & GCV sectors - which would be the equivalent to $47.77 for the same title. Under the new agreement, a worker of the same title in the light residential sector will be making $43.37.

"In this context, where the balance of power of the Alliance syndicale was beginning to erode, it became imperative for the Alliance syndicale to obtain arbitration of the dispute." says Deveaux.

On the topic of arbitration, Deveaux lays out the possible outcomes of the next step of the negotiations coming this fall: ""Three outcomes are possible: the status quo, a wage gap or a reduction in the wage gap. Whatever the outcome, none of them respects the Alliance Syndicale slogan “Equal Pay for Equal Work”. . This slogan is really only relevant for negotiations in all the 4 construction sectors."

Taking a page out of the history book, Deveaux provided a historic example of what it actually took to obtain a uniformity in salary in Quebec. "It should be noted that in the summer of 1970, construction workers went on an illegal three-week strike and won uniform wages for all working conditions in the construction industry under a single provincial decree."

While the legal and political context provided many difficulties for the Alliance syndicale in obtaining their demands, Deveaux says that the Alliance itself held back the mobilization potential of its base through the way it organized the strike,

"In my opinion, the strike was organised too centrally. According to the reports I obtained from the different regions - Côte-Nord, Québec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, the Montreal region, the Outaouais, etc. - mobilisation varied from one region to another. It would have been preferable to leave mobilisation in the hands of the union activists in the different regions, while respecting the slogans of the Alliance syndicale. There were leadership disputes in some regions, and it would have been preferable for the militant trade unionists to work as a united front."

Similar to reports that North Star received from striking residential workers, Deveaux also heard about workers not being informed enough to properly mobilize themselves.

"We didn't always know in advance which sites to visit, whether they were large, medium or small. The numbers involved in the strike movement were lacking. The Alliance syndicale rally in front of the APCHQ offices mobilised 1,000 people, which is not many when the residential sector represents 60,000 workers."

"A strike has to be prepared in advance, and I sincerely believe that in the case of the strike in the residential sector, this was not done. We need to rectify the situation for the next round of negotiations."

When asked how construction workers should be building a better balance of power for the next round of negotiations, Deveaux responded:

"Building a balance of power is an everyday issue. The mistake made by trade union organisations is to mobilise their members only during negotiation periods, i.e. every four years in the construction industry."

"There is no magic formula, but by holding regular meetings with members, by listening to what they have to tell us about their day-to-day problems at work and with the cost of living, we can build a real balance of power based on workers' concerns."