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Montréal – In a new decision handed down by the Administrative Labour Tribunal (TAT), the government, as well as health and social services minister Christian Dubé and his negotiators, have once again been found guilty of bad-faith bargaining and interference in union activities. On February 28, the TAT imposed punitive damages on the government for a total of $65,000, to be paid to the unions involved.

The APTS (Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux), the FP-CSN (Fédération des professionnèles) and the FSSS-CSN (Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux) had filed complaints denouncing the government’s unilateral decision to implement a $900 lump-sum payment for professional order membership fees in the youth centre sector, at a time when province-wide contract talks for collective agreements were in full swing. And in fact, by the time these contract talks came to an end, labour unions had achieved gains for a number of workers in terms of compensation for such fees.

The government had already been found guilty of bad-faith bargaining and interference in union activities in December 2023 for the way it had imposed measures related to COVID.

“This government is a repeat offender. The court is rapping it over the knuckles for the fourth time in the health and social services system,” said APTS president Robert Comeau, FP-CSN president Danny Roy, and FSSS-CSN president Réjean Leclerc. “Stubbornly choosing to act alone and impose its point of view is one of its major problems. It even had the nerve to impose rules for the reimbursement of professional order membership fees at the exact same time we were bringing demands to the bargaining tables on this issue. How many rulings will it take for the government to understand that it has to work with unions to implement solutions in the health and social services system?”

Source : APTS, FP-CSN, FSSS-CSN