The FIPEQ-CSQ offers to entrust calculation of compensation to an arbitrator

Indefinite general strike for family childcare providers

MONTREAL, Sept. 20, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - The Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec (FIPEQ-CSQ) is offering Minister of Families Mathieu Lacombe to avoid the indefinite general strike that begins on Monday in the family childcare providers if he agrees to entrust the calculation of the subsidy to an independent arbitrator.

It should be remembered that home care providers earn the equivalent of $12.42/hour according to the union's calculations. The government's latest offer stands at $12.83/hour while the FIPEQ-CSQ is asking for the equivalent of $16.75/hour, which is the salary of a non-trained, level 1 educator in a childcare centre.

Since 2008, the FIPEQ-CSQ has always refused to consider family childcare providers as untrained educators at the first level. According to a Léger survey commissioned by the Federation, family childcare providers who are members of the FIPEQ-CSQ have an average of 16 years of experience. "They are true early childhood professionals. They are at the same time an educator, food manager, bookkeeper, janitor, and so on," emphasizes the FIPEQ-CSQ president Valérie Grenon.

As part of the current negotiations, FIPEQ-CSQ proposed to the Ministry of Families to use the non-trained educator at level 1 as a comparative job, provided that a family childcare provider job evaluation committee is set up to make recommendations on the actual tasks and jobs to be compared. "This was already a major concession for our organization. All that remains to be settled is the calculation, but the Ministry of Families refuses to table its way of calculating," Ms. Grenon explains.

Based on the words of the Chair of the Conseil du Trésor Sonia Lebel, who stated last Thursday in the National Assembly that it was "important to set the record straight and mutually establish the right basis of calculation," FIPEQ-CSQ's negotiating team is offering to the Ministry to settle the negotiations by entrusting this basis of calculation to an independent third party.

"It won't be possible to adjust the calculation gap that separates us today. In order to avoid an unlimited general strike I invite the Minister of Families to accept our extended hand to sign a collective agreement in order to stop the closing family childcares and attract new family childcare providers", concludes Ms. Grenon.

About FIPEQ-CSQ
The Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec (FIPEQ-CSQ) is the most representative union organization in early childhood. It represents close to 13,000 members across Quebec working in childhood centers (CPEs) or as supervisors of regulated and subsidized family educational services.

SOURCE Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec (FIPEQ-CSQ)