The Syndicat de l'enseignement de la région de Vaudreuil (SERV-CSQ) denounces the fact that the public speeches of the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, and the Premier, François Legault, in no way reflect the content of the discussions at the tables and the new employer offers.

"The President of the Treasury Board is a very skilful communicator, and what can we say about the Prime Minister, who is lying to the public about the new wage offer? They are trying to make the unions look bad. The public is entitled to know the reality at the bargaining table. We denounce this misleading double discourse and question the government's good faith in these talks. Contrary to the messages conveyed by the government, we want real discussions, because we are ready to move forward, with solutions and mandates in hand," explained Véronique Lefebvre, President of SERV-CSQ.

According to Ms. Lefebvre, the government is trying to fool the public into believing that they are getting good wage increases. "In reality, they are adding the salaries of the new people who will be hired to help in the classroom to the 14.8% announced. The salary offer received on Sunday October 29 is only 10.3% over 5 years".

Regarding the announcement of classroom assistants at primary and secondary level: "the President of the Conseil du trésor is making a big deal of it in the media, even going so far as to equate it with a pay rise. She and the Prime Minister claim to have increased the wage offer to 14.8%, which is false," denounces Véronique Lefebvre.

For the President, there is currently a categorical refusal to discuss union priorities at the priority table. "The union side is expressly told that its priorities are not on the agenda. The government doesn't want to lower the ratio, which would allow better supervision of students. It's also against lightening the load for teachers, who have a hard time planning lessons, correcting and carrying out their teaching work, since today's class composition requires many adaptations and modifications to take into account the different needs of students," added Véronique Lefebvre.

As for the fact that young teachers have the worst classes, "we quickly realized that this was a pretext for increasing the management rights of school administrators. Management and the Chair of the Conseil du trésor are well aware that the collective agreement stipulates that school principals are responsible for developing and assigning equitable tasks, and ensuring that no teacher is overloaded in relation to his or her colleagues," she laments.

"It's time to stop the false rhetoric and start the real negotiations. If the Prime Minister and the Conseil du trésor wish to reach an agreement before Christmas, we must give mandates to the employer negotiators so that they are open to our solutions for improving education in Quebec," concluded Ms. Lefebvre.