Montreal

Quebec reaches agreement-in-principle with about 2,000 subsidized daycare workers

The Quebec government has reached an agreement-in-principle with a union that represents about 2,000 workers in subsidized daycares.

Workers were seeking salary increase

A child playing in a daycare.
The union members who work in CPEs will have a chance to vote on this agreement-in-principle in the new year. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)

The Quebec government has reached an agreement-in-principle with a union that represents workers in subsidized daycares — or CPEs as they're known in French.

The agreement comes about two weeks after the province reached a similar deal with Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec (FIPEQ-CSQ), but that deal only pertained to approximately 9,000 workers in family-run daycares.

That agreement was accepted on Friday, with about 85 per cent of those members voting in favour of it.

The latest agreement-in-principle, announced on Sunday, is for a little more than 2,000 workers who are affiliated to that same union and work in subsidized daycares.

The union members who work in CPEs will have a chance to vote on this agreement-in-principle in the new year.

Family-run daycares were asking the government for a larger subsidy while CPE workers were seeking a salary increase.

60,000 children and their parents had been affected by the union's strike action as family-run daycares and CPEs opened later than usual.

Written by Antoni Nerestant