FAE teachers strike day 8, they call out Sonia Lebel

Teachers with the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement – known as the FAE – continued their unlimited general strike on Monday. It’s now in it’s eighth day.

They marched in the streets of Montreal, to Premier François Legault’s office.

They called out Sonia Lebel for what they say was a detrimental statement she made to the Journal, amid negotiations at the bargaining table.

The President of the Treasury Board deplored the lack of progress on flexibility in the counter-offer presented by the FAE to the government on Saturday. 

The FAE’s strike affects 40 per cent of public schools – mainly in the French sector.

12 Days of Activism against Gender Violence

As part of the global 12 Days of Activism against Gender Violence initiative, some 2,000 FAE teachers marched from Quartier des spectacles to Legault’s office to tell him that they no longer accept the violence they suffer on a daily basis, and that they are demanding, as part of their next collective agreement, decent working conditions.

“According to a survey by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), 57 per cent of school staff are experiencing psychological distress, including 14 per cent at a very high level. Distress is highest among teachers, at 62 per cent. What’s more, since 2018, the number of claims accepted by CNESST has tripled (up 64 per cent) for violent acts committed against elementary school teachers,” writes the FAE in a press release.

“In Quebec, female workers are over-represented when it comes to injuries attributable to violence. In 2022, women accounted for almost half of the full-time equivalent (FTE) workers covered by the plan (47.4 per cent), while they suffered 73.8 per cent of physical violence injuries and 65.7 per cent of psychological violence injuries. And that’s not counting the many unreported cases, since violence is all too often trivialized when it is reported.”

“We, the teachers, are standing up today, proud and strong, in front of François Legault’s office to tell him that the physical, psychological and organizational violence we’ve been enduring for too long, enough is enough! It’s not right that, in 2023, so many of us should call in sick and fall fighting to provide quality services in Quebec’s schools. Instead of making us feel guilty, the Premier, like Sonia LeBel, President of the Conseil du trésor, and Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education, must support us and offer us the means to teach, but also ensure that we can do so throughout our careers,” declared Annie-Christine Tardif, FAE’s Vice-President, Professional Life.

The FAE says that the solutions they are proposing at the negotiating tables aim, among other things, “to clean up our workplaces and put in place mechanisms to prevent and manage such violence, but also to ensure that our employers have an obligation to offer services to our students, without always having to fight to obtain them.”

They add that they are prepared to hold out for as long as it takes to reach “a satisfactory agreement, which must reflect, among other things, the issues of organizational violence that we suffer,” concluded Tardif.