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As of the 141st working day of 2019-2020, the application of an 8% adjustment to the salary scale for all teachers would bring them to the Canadian average. The decree was announced Wednesday in the Gazette officielle du Québec and indicates that collective agreements can be amended to “allow the employer to assign different tasks and schedules to employees so that they can meet the necessary needs.” This adjustment of teachers` salaries will complement the cross-sectoral salary requirements that apply to all public sector employees. In a context of staff shortages, an urgent need to improve the teaching profession and a considerable gap with other Canadian provinces, FSE and QPAT are calling for an increase in teachers` salaries. “We understand that someone who receives an email and learns that their collective agreement no longer applies is panicked,” Sonia Éthier, president of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. “You have been told that their collective agreements will no longer apply if certain provisions, such as emergency measures, apply.” On the morning of Thursday, March 19, 2020, The Canadian Press was rumbling with reports that the Quebec government had suspended collective agreements in the public education sector. In its online edition, CTV Montreal published the story COVID-19: Quebec Teachers in Shock After the Government Suspended Collective Agreements. As reported in history, the president of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ) said that “they were told that all of their collective agreements would no longer apply when certain provisions apply, such as emergency measures.” As important as these three aspects of collective agreements are, they do not exhaust collective agreements and therefore cannot rightly be regarded as a suspension of collective agreements in the public education sector. It may also be interesting to note that the amendments were made specifically to the agreements that focused on public sector employees in the education sector and not on all public sector employees. Ethier says he spoke with Quebec`s deputy minister of education, Eric Blackburn, to clarify the situation after being inundated with calls from concerned teachers. In the context of the lack of staff and the abandonment of the profession, the ESF and QPAT are calling for improvements in the conditions of professional integration of teachers and teachers whose status is precarious, who represent about 42% of the teaching staff: MONTREAL — Teachers across Quebec say they are worried after receiving communications about their tasks. Schedules and jobs could be changed at any time, as their collective agreements are no longer considered mandatory to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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