The 3,600 unionized paramedics who were set to go on strike Dec. 16 and 17 have again postponed the action until an undetermined date.
A tribunal hearing scheduled for Monday to determine which essential services would be maintained during the strike was cancelled after the union issued a notice of “non-recourse” regarding the strike.
Despite the language used in the notice, the strike has not been cancelled but merely suspended.
The strike had initially been slated for Dec. 15 but was postponed to the following two days, according to the cities that employ the paramedics. The 3,600 workers belong to the Confédération des syndicats nationaux.
The CSN’s Fédération de la santé et des services sociaux represents paramedics, dispatchers and other frontline healthcare workers in Laval, Montreal and other regions in Quebec.
The union is negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement just as Quebec’s health ministry has delegated its negotiating powers to individual healthcare providers. For their part, the healthcare providers say they don’t know what their budgets will look like after two years, which makes negotiating a long term collective agreement rather complicated.
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