Members of the Syndicat de l'enseignement des Seigneuries (SES) passed an unlimited general strike mandate by a vote of 96%. The vote took place at their meeting on September 19.

The SES represents just over 700 members, including teachers from the five secondary schools governed by the Centre de services scolaires des Trois-Lacs, as well as from vocational training and adult education. 

"We have everything we need to go on strike, depending on progress or lack of progress at the negotiations table," says SES President Martine Dumas.

For the moment, no date has been set for a strike. "The mandate allows us to call a strike at any time we see fit," continues Ms. Dumas.

By law, notice must be given to the employer seven days before the strike. 

"Our objective is not to go on an indefinite general strike. Our main goal is to reach a satisfactory agreement that will ensure quality education for our public system and decent working conditions for our teachers," says the President.

SES members have been without a collective agreement since March 30, 2023. "We filed our applications in October 2022 and in December, the employer offers were filed. So there have been discussions since January 2023 and nothing is moving. It's all very well for management to say that they want to resolve the situation, but at the negotiating tables, that hasn't translated into any real movement on their part," adds Martine Dumas. 

Management challenged

Since last spring, various pressure tactics have been put in place by teachers. Given the slow pace of negotiations, SES members intend to continue their actions this autumn.

Martine Dumas assures us, however, that no pressure tactics will compromise student learning.

"We're talking about disrupting various administrative meetings. We want to make our immediate management aware of what we want. We want them to tell those who represent them that things have to change. Our managers are direct witnesses to what we experience on a daily basis. They see that teachers' workloads are getting heavier all the time, and that this is not sustainable."

Long-term issues according to union members

On September 7, a prioritization of demands was tabled by the Fédération autonome de l'enseignement, the organization to which the SES is affiliated. "We can't wait to see what the employer's prioritization will look like, because for the time being, the employer's demands represent long-term issues of staff retention and attraction. If the conditions currently on the table remain unchanged, we can't expect things to go well in our schools in the short, medium and long term," said Martine Dumas.

According to the President, the employers' offers are more like requests. "We can't think that we're going to solve the shortage by increasing the number of teaching hours for existing teachers. Because that's what's on the table right now. There's talk of increasing the average number of hours per teacher, of reviewing the identification of students in difficulty, of reviewing the regular work week. These are not what I'd call offers."

For Martine Dumas, it's clear that the outcome of the current negotiations will have a long-term impact on what happens next. "We mustn't forget that teachers' working conditions are also the conditions of education for our students and the quality of teaching in our public schools... Negotiations will have a long-term impact on our society, and I would go even further and say on the quality of our public schools".