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Québec City – Labour organizations representing workers employed in health care, social services and education today filed constitutional challenges with the Superior Court to invalidate discriminatory provisions of Law 28, An Act to improve certain labour laws. Law 28 is the outcome of a 2025 bill known as Bill 101.

Law 28 excludes workers in health care, social services and education from the general regime of occupational health and safety prevention that is designed for all Québec workplaces. Instead, these workers are relegated to second class in terms of prevention measures. The labour organizations’ spokespersons spoke with one voice in sharply criticizing a decision that perpetuates a historical disadvantage experienced by women, since the exclusion directly targets sectors in which they form a significant majority.

“The government knows full well that women employed in these sectors are facing the highest levels of risk in terms of health and safety,” said union spokespersons Robert Comeau (APTS), Caroline Senneville (CSN), Éric Gingras (CSQ), Mélanie Hubert (FAE), Julie Bouchard (FIQ) and Olivier Carrière (FTQ). “The labour minister himself acknowledged and criticized this historical discrimination back in 2021. Now, four years later, he’s choosing to exclude these women from the general prevention regime. This is discrimination and a direct assault on the right to equality. It’s not something we can tolerate.”

Québec’s occupational health and safety protections were finally brought up to date in 2021 thanks to the Act to modernize the occupational health and safety regime, which enables women employed in historically neglected sectors to benefit from the same protections as those provided in industrial workplaces since 1979. The Regulation respecting prevention and participation mechanisms in an establishment was supposed to complete the roll-out of the new regime in 2025, taking women’s realities, and the risks they actually run, into consideration. In adopting Law 28, however, the government has chosen to remove the health and social services and education systems from the occupational health and safety regime, providing these sectors with prevention measures that are significantly inferior even to those established for economic sectors with the lowest levels of risk. And yet, over a third of all work-related accidents recognized in Québec in 2024 took place in the education and health care and social assistance sectors. Why did the government make this decision? Because it would have cost too much to do otherwise.

“We refuse to see the women who care, teach, accompany and support our society be relegated to a second-class regime,” said the spokespersons. “We have an obligation to challenge this decision and fight for the workers we represent and for our society, but also for patients, children, and all Quebecers who need our public systems.”

The labour organizations reasserted their determination to obtain justice and achieve recognition for the fact that the exclusion imposed by Law 28 is not only unjustified, but also unconstitutional. They are demanding that Article 46 of the Act be invalidated and that women employed in health, social services and education finally be given the protections that are theirs by right.

Organizations contesting Law 28 and taking part in the coordinated filing of legal actions:

Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS)

Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN)

·       Fédération des employées et employés de services publics (FEESP–CSN)

·       Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ–CSN)  

·       Fédération des professionnèles (FP–CSN) 

·       Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (FSSS–CSN)

Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ)

·       Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement (FSE-CSQ)

·       Fédération du personnel de soutien scolaire (FPSS-CSQ)

·       Fédération du personnel professionnel de l’éducation (FPPE-CSQ)

·       Fédération du personnel de l’enseignement privé (FPEP-CSQ)

·       Fédération de la santé du Québec (FSQ-CSQ)

·       Association provinciale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (APEQ)

Fédération autonome de l'enseignement (FAE)

Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ)

Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) 

·       Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE (FTQ)

·       Syndicat des employées et employés professionnels-les et de bureau, SEPB (FTQ)

·       Syndicat québécois des employées et employés de service, section locale 298, SQEES-298 (FTQ)

·       Union des employés et employées de service, UES 800 (FTQ)

Source :

APTS, CSN, CSQ, FAE, FIQ, FTQ