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Union workers demand same perks as doctors, nurses
ISABELLE DUBOIS
KUUJJUAQ - When Phillipe Couillard, Quebec's new health minister, came to Kuujjuaq on the Thanksgiving weekend, he came face-to-face with a bunch of unhappy health-care workers who insist that they are being unfairly deprived of benefits extended to doctors and nurses at the Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre.
On the morning after his early arrival in Kuujjuaq, and on the evening of October 10, unionized workers gathered in front of his hotel, waving signs and chanting.
When Couillard finally showed up outside just before lunch, Michelle Audy, president of the union local representing more than 300 workers at the centre, explained some of their main bones of contention.
"Doctors and nurses receive retention premiums, but other health and social services workers don't," she said.
Retention premiums are offered to attract doctors and nurses to the remote region of Nunavik. Audy said nurses get $14,000 on top of their annual salary, as well as payments for shipping cargo north and for travel home.
"If we could get the same thing nurses get, we would be happy," she said. Couillard replied that he was aware of the disparity in terms of retention payments and promised to mention it to Jacques Larouche, the deputy minister.
Audy also complained that employees hired from within a 50-kilometre radius don't get travel benefits such as airfare that would give them the chance to get out occasionally.
"In small communities like in Nunavik, social workers are still seen as social workers even outside their working hours," she said. "But like everybody else, they need a break, they need to get away from it." She said that inequities also exist with respect to housing, with locally hired employees being ineligible for housing benefits. What's more, she said, employers are having a hard time finding housing for staff hired outside the community, who often have to bunk together in small apartments.
"Without proper lodging to offer, the [health center] is having a hard time to fill positions," Audy said. "Social workers and other employees are not able to find replacements when they go on holiday or call in sick [and] are left with a heavier workload." She also complained that facilities in Nunavik are outdated and inadequate.
Couillard, for his part, told the union president that he had seen what employees were doing and he was very impressed with what they can accomplish.