Public sector offer: Martin Coiteux still wants settlement 'within weeks'

Quebec Treasury Board Chair Martin Coiteux said he's "very disappointed" after public sector unions dismissed outright his government's latest contract offer, calling it "unacceptable."

• Students from across Quebec converge in downtown Montreal to protest against austerity
• Quebec public sector worker strikes: Everything you need to know

Coiteux said the newest offer amounts to an injection of $1.7 billion more than the government's initial offer, or an increase of 5.3 per cent over five years.

That includes slightly more than half a billion dollars which Coiteux said would go towards "addressing some of the inequities that we have right now in our salary grids."

The new offer falls far short of the 13 per cent raise over five years that public sector workers are seeking. 

"They are still insisting on demands that are, quite frankly, impossible," Coiteux said. "The government is making a very, very serious offer...because we want to come to an agreement within the next weeks.

​​No more need for pressure tactics, says Couillard

At the National Assembly, Premier Philippe Couillard echoed his Treasury Board president, calling the latest offer "a very significant gesture."

"No one will understand why parents and patients should have to go through pressure tactics, now that we have this new offer on the table," Couillard said. "We've put a significant level of improvement on the table... At some point, we have to close and reach a settlement."

'Bad faith bargaining': FIQ

However, public sector unions said they have no intention of taking off pressure, with more rotating strikes planned for next week.

The president of FIQ, Quebec's federation of nurses unions, accused the government of bad-faith bargaining.

"There is nothing to improve our conditions," Régine Laurent said, "nothing to retain people working now and certainly nothing to attract new people to the [health care] network."

Imposed contract coming?

Earlier Friday, protesters gathered outside of the Mount Royal Club on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal, where the Treasury Board president was scheduled to make a presentation to Quebec's federation of chambers of commerce, the FCCQ.

"Workers will not stop until they get the respect they demand," Dominique Daigneault of the CSN said.

The president of FAE – the labour group that represents most French-language teachers in the greater Montreal region – dismissed Coiteux's peddling of the offer Friday as "a public relations exercise" with no substantive improvements.

He said Coiteux is setting the stage for drafting special legislation before the adjournment of the National Assembly on Dec. 4 that would impose a collective agreement on the public sector.

Another week of strikes

Both the FAE and the FIQ, along with the Common Front – a coalition of unions representing some 400,000 public sector workers – are planning rotating strikes throughout next week.

In Montreal and Laval, both French-language and English-language schools will be closed November 16 and 17.

Hospitals and clinics will also be affected, although essential services will be offered.

Details of government offer

Under the new proposal, all public sector workers would still see a basic three per cent salary hike over five years.

But many would see increases higher than that, once salary-scale inequities were adjusted, the Treasury Board president said.

Right now, two civil servants with the same level of education whose work is classified at the same rank could find themselves in entirely different salary grids because of the way past collective agreements were negotiated.

"We're proposing that people, if their work is of an equal value, they should have exactly the same salary grid," Coiteux said.

"For 95 per cent of our employees, as a result of this, they will have an increase in their salary," he said, over and above the basic three per cent increase.

Coiteux said the proposed changes to the grid  have long been sought by the unions and would improve the long-term prospects for younger public servants starting out in their careers.

"They will have a higher average salary over their whole career – and that will have a positive impact on their retirement, as well," he said.

Among other proposals in the government offer:

• A delay in the plan to raise retirement age from 60 to 62. This measure would be implemented over the next four years instead of two.
• The withdrawal of a proposal to calculate retirement pensions based on an employee's best eight years of service. The current practice of basing pensions on an employee's best five years of service would remain.