FSE-CSQ and QPAT vote 59.5% in favour of agreement with Quebec

Members of the Fédération des Syndicats de l’Enseignement (FSE) and its English-language counterpart, the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), voted 59.5 per cent in favour of the proposed agreement with Quebec for the renewal of collective agreements.

The FSE, which is affiliated with the CSQ, represents 95,000 elementary and secondary school teachers, or 60 per cent of all teachers in Quebec. QPAT represents 8,000 on the English side.

“We were told that we had taken a step. But we can see that the disappointment is strong and palpable. So there’s a satisfaction in saying ‘we’re making progress’, but we’re aware that there’s still so much work to be done. And we need to get to work right away,” summarized FSE President Josée Scalabrini in an interview.

The members’ dissatisfaction, reported by the union representatives at the meeting, relates to the resources granted by Quebec to tackle the problems of class composition and teachers’ heavy workloads.

Scalabrini reports that her members also want to talk about issues like student evaluations and communications with parents.

“For them, these are all exchanges that need to take place. It’s not settled in a negotiation; it’s settled in the Education Act, in the regulations concerning education, in education policies,” sums up Scalabrini.

She hopes that the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, will understand the meaning of this vote.

“The government can’t ignore what they hear. They (the teachers) have told the government: that things must continue to change in education. There’s still a lot to be done,” said Scalabrini.

“Our Minister of Education will have to be very careful. It’s not comments like the ones he made this week that will help the debate, it’s not saying to teachers: ‘we couldn’t give you what we didn’t have’. Just a moment! There were still solutions. We can go further; we can continue to work together. And that’s the message the Minister needs to get across,” added Scalabrini.

To find out the percentage of support for the intersectoral agreement on wages and pensions negotiated by the common front – of which the CSQ is a member – we’ll have to wait until next week. All the unions that are members of the Common Front have not yet completed their meetings.

What’s in the agreement?

The FSE and QPAT nonetheless highlight several gains in the sectoral agreement, including the addition of $74 million for classroom composition – a sum that will be recurrent.

They also note the addition of an additional half-time resource in kindergarten, other than classroom assistance. Priority will be given to groups where the maximum number of students has been reached.

They also point to the gradual increase in the possibility of teleworking, from two hours at present to five hours a week eventually.

They also note the addition of 4,000 classroom assistants, as well as the gradual withdrawal of collective supervision of pupils, eventually leading to the withdrawal of all supervision by primary school teachers, where possible.

They say automatic recognition of a minimum of one hour of supervision per week in the educational task for all primary school teachers.

On the pay front, in addition to the 17.4 per cent pay rise over five years negotiated by the Common Front, teachers will also benefit from an increase in steps 1 to 15 of their salary scale.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews