Home daycare workers protest lack of openness at negotiation table
14,000 home daycare workers staged a one-day strike in Quebec.
Parents of more than 90,000 children had to make alternate arrangements on July 7 after workers walked off the job Monday morning. The workers, affiliated with the Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ), are protesting what they call a lack of openness at the negotiation table.
Recent talks with the province’s new family minister Francine Charbonneau have not progressed, according to the union. Daycare workers with CSQ have been without a collective agreement since November 2013.
One major point of contention for workers is the set of rules relating to the ratio of children to workers. Many home daycare workers are female, and those who run publicly-subsidized daycares are often unable to have their own children at their facility as a result of child-to-worker ratios.
CSQ is calling for the Bureau Coordonnateurs de la Garde en Millieu Familial — the provincial organization that acts as a mediator between daycare owners and the family ministry — to be involved in the new collective agreement negotiations.
The union is calling for additional strike days this summer if negotiations don’t progress.
