FIQ health-care workers to vote on conciliator’s proposal with Quebec

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The 80,000 members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé (FIQ), which represents the vast majority of Quebec nurses, auxiliary nurses, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists, are to start to vote Tuesday on a conciliator’s proposal for the renewal of their collective agreement.

The members’ vote will take place from Tuesday at 8 p.m. to Thursday at 8 p.m. It follows general assemblies in recent weeks during which members were informed of the content of the conciliator’s proposal.

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It’s the conciliator’s proposal on which the members are voting — not an agreement in principle. The proposal was put forth by the conciliator as “a reasonable balance between the parties,” FIQ reported when the proposal was announced.

If the recommendation is approved by the members, it would become the FIQ collective agreement. If it is not approved, the parties will probably return to the negotiating table.

An agreement in principle had been reached between the parties, but 61 per cent of members who took part in an online vote last spring rejected it. The participation rate was 77 per cent.

In the discussions that followed, the issue of nurse mobility was more marked, according to information FIQ has provided to its members. Nurse mobility — having nurses move from one unit to another or even one establishment to another — was at the heart of the dispute and the main reason the agreement in principle was rejected.

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