Healthcare professionals in the Laurentians mobilize against the employer’s abusive management and excessive use of mandatory overtime
The members of the Syndicat des professionnelles en soins des Laurentides (FIQ-SPSL), accompanied by Nancy Bédard, President of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec – FIQ, protested outside of the HR’s management offices to denounce the employer’s proposals to eliminate mandatory overtime and overtime altogether. Healthcare professionals’ current working conditions are intolerable. They demonstrated to remind the employer how important it is to provide appealing jobs and staff-retaining measures.
“Nurses, licensed practical nurses and respiratory therapists are overworked and out of energy in the Laurentians. We are asking the employer to provide stable jobs with eight days per two weeks for all of our members. The employer is always saying he wants to provide appealing conditions but doesn’t offer any jobs that match that description. All he needs to do is look to our neighbour, the CISSS de Lanaudière, which started offering more appealing positions,” said the FIQ-SPSL interim president, Matthieu Parker-Labonté.
According to the union, the employer’s proposals for eliminating overtime and mandatory overtime are ill-adapted. He posted unstable jobs for more than one type of work shift, at several centres of activity, sometimes over a distance of 60 km, all without offering shifts to the part-time employees who already work at these very activity centres. The employer’s unilateral decisions only make healthcare professionals’ feel increasingly unsatisfied at work and intensify their work overload.
“It’s time to instate real organization of work. The union proposed concrete solutions but the employer turns a deaf ear. Whether in the Laurentians or elsewhere in Quebec, using mandatory overtime as a management method has to stop. We have solutions and the employer needs to hear them so that our healthcare professionals can finally get the conditions they need to provide safe, quality care,” said Nancy Bédard, FIQ President.
“We are asking the employer to take down the 189 unstable job postings, which generate more concern than satisfaction among our members. When you have to work two different types of work shifts at two different centres of activity, you need to learn four work routines. It creates instability which in turn makes care provision riskier and has an impact on care quality and safety,” concluded Matthieu Parker-Labonté.