QUEBEC CITY – Frustrated by stalled negotiations in their efforts to secure industry-standard pay rates, workers at five Quebec ferry crossings will be on strike on June 21 and 22, as well as eight other dates still to be determined.
The 150 workers, members of Local 9599 of the Syndicat des Métallos/United Steelworkers union (USW), have voted 93% in favour of a mandate to strike for up to 10 days, to pressure their employer to negotiate a fair contract. The workers are in the midst of collective bargaining with their employer – the Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ), a provincial government agency.
“Our members earn about $10 an hour less than other workers with comparable duties and qualifications in the industry. Salaries are not competitive at the Société des traversiers compared with what is offered elsewhere in the sector,” said Simon Carbonneau Graton, President of the USW Local 9599 bargaining unit and a captain with the provincial ferry service.
“The STQ itself pays two to three times more for workers hired through employment agencies than it pays to our members. If the STQ paid its own employees properly, it would have enough staff and wouldn’t need to recruit from employment agencies to whom they pay even more,” Carbonneau Graton said.
USW Local 9599 sent a notice yesterday to the employer, advising of strike action on June 21 and 22 at five ferry crossings – Québec/Lévis, Matane/Godbout, Tadoussac/Baie-Sainte-Catherine, L’Isle-aux-Coudres/Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive and Sorel/Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola. The union also sent a proposal to the employer and to the Quebec government’s labour law tribunal, regarding the provision of essential services during the strike. The tribunal will determine the level of service required to ensure public health and safety.
The employees are determined to negotiate a fair contract, said USW staff representative Luc Laberge.
“Our members are frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations. In our most-recent bargaining session, the employer’s representatives once again came to the table without a mandate to negotiate on monetary issues in a new contract,” Laberge noted.
“Our members have not had a pay increase since April 1, 2022. The Treasury Board must give the employer the necessary mandates to break the deadlock. Instead, out of the blue, the Treasury Board has come up with a demand for “flexibility” which has never been proposed before. They can’t even give concrete details about what this entails. It shows a total lack of respect for the bargaining process,” Laberge added.
The union points out that its members were subjected to nearly 20 months of drawn-out negotiations before they achieved their previous contract. The current negotiations for a new contract have already lasted 14 months.
“It makes no sense to treat workers with such contempt, at a time when they have fallen so far behind in their wages,” said Simon Carbonneau.
The Syndicat des Métallos/United Steelworkers, affiliated with the Quebec Federation of Labour, is the largest private-sector union in Quebec, representing more than 60,000 workers in all sectors of the economy.
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