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Montréal – Health and social service labour unions reacted favourably to a judgement handed down by the Québec Superior Court on February 28, in a case relating to the evaluation of the biomedical engineering technical coordinator job title. The unions are asking the health and social service ministry (MSSS) to stop mounting legal challenges in this affair.

“If the MSSS wanted to be an ‘employer of choice’, it should have accepted the arbitrator’s decision,” stated spokespersons for the APTS, FP-CSN, FSSS-CSN, FSQ-CSQ, FIQ, CUPE Québec and SQEES-FTQ. “Eight years after the beginning of the arbitration process, biomedical engineering technical coordinators were entitled to receive the fair compensation that is their due as determined by the specialized arbitrator. This is an important ruling and we hope it will put an end to a long-standing legal dispute between our unions and the MSSS.”

In handing down the decision, the court rejected the case brought by the MSSS and confirmed the arbitrator’s ruling that these health professionals must be given ranking 18 in the salary structure.

The biomedical engineering technical coordinators’ job is to coordinate and direct a team of technicians, and to oversee the optimization and maintenance of specialized medical equipment used in our health institutions. Efforts to determine the value of their job title were made from 2008 to 2014, but employer and union representatives were not able to agree on the evaluation of the 17 sub-factors on which salary rankings are based. As a consequence, the scores of the disputed sub-factors were submitted to an arbitrator, who confirmed the unions’ evaluation in a decision handed down in February 2022.

The MSSS then chose to contest the decision before the Québec Superior Court, pointlessly delaying the moment when biomedical engineering technical coordinators would finally obtain full recognition of their job’s value. Health and social service unions have made representations to Judge Gagnon over the past year, and were very pleased with the judgement she handed down at the end of February.

“After so many years of litigation, our unions are proud of having finally achieved this recognition for biomedical engineering technical coordinators,” said the union spokespersons. “It’s time for the MSSS to accept the fact that these employees deserve ranking 18 and to stop mounting legal challenges to delay the compensation adjustment to which they’re entitled. Here’s hoping that from now on, the MSSS will behave like an employer of choice!”

Source:

APTS, FP-CSN, FSSS-CSN, FSQ-CSQ, FIQ, CUPE Québec, SQEES-FTQ