Quebec union announces 3 more strike days for its 400 daycares if no agreement reached

Annabelle Olivier · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 08, 2025 2:27 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Child-care educators astatine 400 publically funded daycares, known as CPE's, were retired connected the picket enactment again connected Tuesday for the 10th day. 

Workers extracurricular CPE la Sourithèque in Montreal donned yellow T-shirts and signs, portion others waved flags and made noise. Some parents besides joined the fray, bringing their young children along, to amusement their enactment for the striking workers.

At a quality league held successful beforehand of the daycare, FSSS-CSN national typical Stéphanie Vachon announced 3 further onslaught days planned for adjacent week. 

Vachon told reporters that negotiations with the employers, the Family Ministry and the Quebec Treasury Board are ongoing, but wage remains a large sticking point. 

Vachon explained that portion the authorities has offered a 17.4 per cent summation successful wage implicit 5 years, and is holding steadfast connected that number, there are different ways to code wage inequities wrong the nationalist sector.

"A idiosyncratic successful the public assemblage who has the aforesaid qualifications arsenic america is having a wage of $37 an hr and we're inactive astatine $35, with the connection connected the table," she said. 

"We privation to cognize what the authorities is going to bash to resoluteness that problem."

Vachon said the CPE web is already short-staffed and she said she worries the adjacent procreation of educators volition take antithetic careers if things don't change.

She believes that would hinder the network's quality to make much-need and long-awaited places successful subsidized daycares.

In video connection posted to X past week, Treasury Board President Sonia Lebel said having a prime web successful the state for the bully of parents and children is of utmost importance.

Lebel expressed optimism that a woody could beryllium reached with the national and said the offers connected the array were "generous and equitable."

Lebel besides pointed to 2 different unions representing daycare workers that "had accepted these offers and said they were precise arrogant of the advances that they had managed to get for educators."

In a written connection to CBC News connected Tuesday, the Treasury Board Secretariat said the authorities would not remark connected unit tactics by the union, saying it is the union's prime to bash arsenic it pleases. 

The connection reiterated overmuch of the aforesaid messaging arsenic Lebel and added that the 17.4 per cent summation accepted by the CSQ et FTQ unions representing child-care workers were besides the aforesaid increases that were "granted to 98 per cent of the nationalist and para-public assemblage groups with which the authorities has already reached an agreement." 

Despite ongoing negotiations, Vachon said that if an statement successful rule isn't reached soon, the national is considering launching an unlimited wide strike. 

"We person the mandate," she said. 

But adjacent if it's connected the table, it's not thing daycare workers are keen to do. 

"We don't privation to bash that to the parents, we don't privation to bash that to ourselves due to the fact that its a nonaccomplishment of revenue," said Rachel Castonguay, an pedagogue astatine Sourithèque. 

"It's a perilous concern but it's that important."

Vachon besides acknowledged the interaction onslaught days tin person connected parents and thanked them for their continued enactment portion besides apologizing for immoderate disruptions.