Quebec healthcare workers still without a contract

Members of the Fédération interprofessionelle de la santé, one of Québec's biggest healthcare workers' union, are voting in the coming days on a set of recommendations made by a conciliator. The nurses, clinical perfusionists, and respiratory therapists represented by the union have been without a collective agreement for more than 500 days.

After negotiations in early September were once again unproductive, a bargaining conciliator presented recommendations to both the FIQ and the provincial government. The FIQ has spent the last month conducting information sessions with its members to explain the recommendations and their implications. Members will vote on the recommendations on October 15, 16, and 17.

A key sticking point in negotiations has been the question of forced mobility. The government is demanding the ability to displace health care workers at will between care units as well as between facilities. The FIQ and its members have strongly opposed this measure throughout negotiations. Nurses and union leaders have described how these compulsory transfers will have a negative impact on workplace health and safety, work-life balance, and patient care.

"When you force people to move around, you lose continuity of care, and you lose stability in teams, and you lose a lot of experience," nursing professor Natalie Stake-Doucet told The North Star in an interview last March.

The conciliator's recommendations do not eliminate forced mobility altogether but set out some limits on the scope and nature of compulsory transfers. They include a complex formula to define the geographic scope of possible transfers (up to 40 kilometres in some cases) and a quota for fixed shifts and positions in some institutions.

On the heels of the recommendations came a decision from Quebec's Administrative Labour Tribunal which bars the FIQ from refusing overtime shifts as a pressure tactic. The union still has a strike mandate, but there are limits on how this can be exercised as its members are designated essential service workers.

The union's membership rejected a tentative deal by 61% in April, despite an endorsement from the union's leadership.