Quebec government engineers will be on strike starting at midnight for one day. But this is expected to be just the beginning of a strike that will intensify until June, warned Marc-André Martin, president of the APIGQ, in an interview on Tuesday.
The Professional Association of Engineers of the Government of Quebec (APIGQ) has 1900 members, who work mainly at the Ministry of Transport, but also at the Ministry of Environment, Municipal Affairs, Natural Resources, and Cybersecurity.
Negotiations with the Quebec government are at an impasse and the engineers’ union hopes to increase pressure on the employer, as the infrastructure work is in the authorization and launch phase.
Martin makes no secret of it: “at the Ministry of Transport, this is the critical period for the start of work” and the union intends to take full advantage of it.
The heart of the dispute is the allocation of a “sectoral budget” for engineers, earmarked for certain groups deemed priorities by the government. This budget would allow them to go beyond the 17.4 per cent salary increase over five years that all state employees have received.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
