After a year and a half of negotiations, 66 per cent of the members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) ultimately voted in favor of the agreement proposed by the mediator. This agreement includes major setbacks on working conditions for nurses and other healthcare workers. The slim gains are far from compensating for the setbacks. The CAQ government won on “staff mobility”, i.e., the ability to move staff at will between care units, and even between hospitals.
For nurses, it’s a defeat on virtually every front: no nurse-to-patient ratio, no plan to end mandatory overtime, and a salary increase that barely makes up for inflation.
How to explain this defeat, when we had shown that we were ready to fight, and even led several strike actions, the first in over 20 years? We had the support of the population, and the CAQ government was highly unpopular.
This is entirely the fault of the FIQ leadership, which had no serious plan for fighting the CAQ. After the members rejected a first proposal in April 2024, the executive found itself completely disoriented and unable to wage a real fight against the CAQ. On the contrary, it kept calling on Legault to “negotiate in good faith”.
The result is that many members have completely lost confidence in their leadership, and have reluctantly voted for an agreement that no one is happy about.
This shows that this collaborationist approach is a losing strategy and must be thrown out once and for all. We need a union that is not afraid to go all the way and mobilize the working class with a perspective of class struggle against the capitalist enemy.
The FIQ must join forces with the other unions, that are organized in the Common Front, to put an end to the division between public sector workers.
With the Dubé reform and the creation of Santé Québec, privatization is accelerating. We have to ask ourselves: who will control the healthcare system? Right now, it’s the bosses and investors who decide how to organize our public health system.
These people’s only interest is to make a profit on the backs of patients. The CEO, Geneviève Biron, will be paid $652,000 a year—more than double the Premier’s salary! Meanwhile, nurses will have to tighten their belts.
In the end, under this system, the bosses have nothing but misery to offer. To reverse the privatization and deterioration of our public services, workers must take power and decide democratically how the healthcare system needs to be run.
