This letter is to inform you that we are rejecting the employer’s offer to temporarily increase healthcare staff at the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale. Since February 15, our union has been trying to negotiate a satisfactory agreement with your representatives so that our members can provide the public with safe, quality care, while allowing them to maintain their own mental and physical health.

However, considering the employer’s current offer, we find ourselves at an impasse. Your representatives would like to implement measures to ensure that no extra nurses are ever on staff and therefore paid to do nothing. In response, we can guarantee that no nurse is currently paid to do nothing.

Moreover, the vast majority of healthcare professionals currently work every second weekend, which clearly has an impact on their work-family balance. Your representatives are demanding that they work more weekends, even with summer approaching. There’s no way we can agree to that.

Your representatives also want to be able to move any surplus healthcare professional on the team to another department where they think there is a need, regardless of the workplace or type of care given. We do not feel that our members can properly carry out their duties if they don’t know the workplace, equipment or patients. It is in complete violation of Bill 10.

It is time to take action, but moreover, it’s time to unite behind a different approach. In light of this situation, and unless your representatives change their tune, we feel there is no point in negotiating a temporary agreement. We prefer to focus on long-term solutions.

These solutions can only be achieved through the local negotiations underway, which, we hope will accelerate. We have already been waiting for eight months for data on the workforce and information on CIUSSS structures to be able to move ahead.

In conclusion, once again, on behalf of the exhausted healthcare professionals we represent, we strongly encourage you to listen to them and to work with us to offer appealing work conditions and ensure that the public at the Capitale-Nationale receives safe, quality care.
Sincerely,