Quebec residential construction: hours before a strike, APCHQ tables ‘final offer’

With just hours to go before a residential construction strike in Quebec, the APCHQ tabled a “last offer” to the Alliance syndicale.

The indefinite strike in residential construction industry is scheduled for 12:01 a.m.

The Alliance syndicale de la construction and the Alliance syndicale and the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l’habitation du Québec (APCHQ) were still talking late Tuesday afternoon in a last-ditch effort to avert a strike.

“This 18 per cent improved offer represents a 1.5 per cent increase over four years compared to the offer tabled on April 22, and a 6 per cent increase over the initial offers. The APCHQ points out that all its offers were rejected, including an interim offer that gave workers an immediate 5 per cent wage increase for the first year,” says the employers’ association, which negotiates for the residential sector.

“The APCHQ is multiplying its efforts to avoid this strike and find a negotiated settlement. Should the impasse persist, the Association is asking the Alliance to quickly accept the offer to go to mediation-arbitration in order to have a rapid resolution of the conflict,” she added.

Arbitration must be accepted by both parties

The Alliance syndicale has not yet made known its reaction to the APCHQ offer. But in the morning, it suggested that unless the parties found common ground at the final meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the strike would be called at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday night.

The Alliance syndicale brings together all the construction unions, namely: the FTQ-Construction, the Syndicat québécois de la construction, the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction (International), the CSD-Construction and the CSN-Construction. It represents a total of 200,000 workers, some of whom work in the residential sector.

The other three sectors of the construction industry have renewed their 2025-2029 collective agreements: civil engineering and roads, industrial and institutional/commercial. In all cases, the same Alliance syndicale settled, but with a different employer association depending on the sector of activity.

These agreements provide for wage increases of 8 per cent in 2025, 5 per cent in 2026, 5 per cent in 2027 and 4 per cent in 2028.

It is important to note that, unlike in other economic sectors, wage increases negotiated in the construction industry are not retroactive to the expiry date of the previous collective agreement. As a result, workers lose money they won’t get back, when the collective agreement is not renewed when it expires. Their agreement expired on April 30.

The APCHQ, for its part, argues that there is currently a housing shortage, and that Quebec cannot afford a strike in the residential sector. With construction costs on the rise, it asserts that it must ensure that costs remain affordable for consumers.

The Alliance syndicale, for its part, points out that it’s not just wages that count in construction costs, but also the cost of materials, land and property taxes.

The Alliance also points out that wages are already lower in the residential sector than in other construction sectors. Depending on the trade, wages in the residential sector are between 6.5 per cent and 14 per cent lower. For a carpenter, for example, wages are 10 per cent lower in the residential sector than in the institutional/commercial sector, according to the Alliance. And these figures do not take into account wage increases recently awarded in the three other sectors that have renewed their respective collective agreements.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews