Quebec daycare workers hit picket lines again, with threat of new strike mandate looming
Posted March 18, 2025 11:47 am.
Last Updated March 18, 2025 1:51 pm.
Thousands of Quebec daycare workers walked off the job Tuesday – the first of two consecutive strike days affecting 416 early childcare centres (CPEs) across the province.
The 13,000 workers, which include educators, kitchen staff, and office workers, will also be on strike Wednesday.
“They are fighting for their working conditions and also because there’s an emergency,” said Dominique Daigneault, president of the Central Council of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM-CSN), at a rally in St. Louis Square in Montreal’s Plateau.
“They have a great determination to improve their salaries and their working conditions. And it’s also a way to protect the network, the CPE network, that is so extraordinary and that we want to keep.”
That will mark the fifth day of a five-day strike action. The CSN union says it will urge the workers to adopt a new strike mandate that could lead to an unlimited general strike if progress isn’t made at the negotiating table.
The dispute concerns wages, the burden of tasks, bonuses for workers in the regions and support for children with special needs.
“Love is a big part of the work, but it’s not all part of the work,” Daigneault told CityNews. “So they have to be qualified, but the government needs to acknowledge these qualifications and by giving them good working conditions.”
The Quebec government submitted an offer last week to the CSN union, which represents 80 per cent of CPE workers, which triggered negotiations between the parties.
But representatives say the offer remains insufficient and includes unacceptable demands.
“They offered us something that represents 40 per cent of what is given to the public sector,” said Stéphanie Vachon, a representative with the Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS-CSN). “And we don’t understand why.
“Government has to understand that what is on the table is not enough.
“And they want us to pull down the level of the quality services by making replacement with assistants, and they are not qualified. And for us, it’s not acceptable.”
Most of the CPEs on strike – 112 of them – are in the Montreal and Laval regions.
CPE workers affiliated with the CSQ and the FTQ unions have already reached agreements in principle with Quebec.
