News

The process of evaluating the clinical sexologist job title that began as part of the work of the provincial committee on jobs (CNE) has now been brought to an end by a ruling handed down by arbitrator François Bastien. The ruling arises from a dispute about three evaluation sub-factors: reasoning, physical effort, and psychological conditions. 

As you may recall, the clinical sexologist job title was created by the health and social services ministry (MSSS) in 2013 with a temporary ranking of 23. Like all new job titles, it was evaluated on the basis of the 17 sub-factors recognized for the purposes of the CNE’s work. These sub-factors are used throughout the health and social services and education systems to define salary scales and ensure that pay equity is maintained. 

By the end of 2022, the CNE had reached an agreement on most of the sub-factors, but there was an ongoing dispute about three of them. These three issues were therefore submitted to arbitration. 

Key points of the arbitration ruling 

• The arbitrator ruled in favour of the APTS on sub-factor 2, reasoning, which is important in terms of weighting. Thanks to this recognition, clinical sexologists are now on the same level as psychologists for this key aspect of their work. 

• The arbitrator increased the evaluation of sub-factor 5, physical effort, without entirely agreeing with the union’s evaluation. 

• The arbitrator agreed with the employer party’s case for sub-factor 15, psychological conditions.

While the arbitration ruling will not bring about any change in salary ranking, it does a confirm a significant improvement to the evaluation initially put forward by the employer party. The APTS was successful in highlighting the realities and requirements of the job carried out by clinical sexologists.