Bargaining scheduled for today between United Steelworkers/Syndicat des Métallos members and the provincial agency that runs Quebec’s marine ferry services was cancelled due to the lack of a mandate for management to negotiate a settlement.
Steelworkers Local 9599 represents workers who operate ferries on five crossings on the St. Lawrence and Saguenay rivers – Québec/Lévis, Matane/Godbout, Tadoussac/Baie-Sainte-Catherine, L’Isle-aux-Coudres/Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive and Sorel/Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola. The workers have been without a contract for 22 months and have not received a wage increase in three years.
Today’s scheduled bargaining was cancelled by a conciliator because negotiators for the Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) – the provincial agency that runs the ferry services – still does not have a mandate from the Quebec Treasury Board, said Steelworkers union representative Luc Laberge.
“Last Thursday was our first meeting in three-and-a-half months, and we wasted our time because the management negotiators had no mandate,” Laberge said. “The conciliator had no choice but to cancel today’s meeting, because our STQ counterparts had no mandate. The government is holding our members’ wage increases hostage and letting negotiations drag on.”
“We still have an eight-day strike mandate in the bank. Our patience has its limits, and STQ is playing dangerously with it,” said Simon Carbonneau-Gratton, president of the Steelworkers Local 9599 bargaining unit.
“The Quebec government must give the STQ real financial leeway to break the deadlock. If not, it should not be surprised if the workers go on strike. No one would accept a three-year wage freeze lying down,” Carbonneau-Gratton added.
Negotiations have stalled primarily over the issues of wages and the use of subcontractors. The workers’ hourly wages are currently $10 lower than what is paid to their counterparts elsewhere in Quebec.
The United Steelworkers/Syndicat des Métallos, affiliated with the FTQ, is the largest private-sector union in Quebec, representing more than 60,000 workers in all sectors of the economy.
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