MONTREAL, May 25, 2024 /CNW/ - The Fédération des professionnelles et professionnels de l'éducation du Québec (FPPE-CSQ), affiliated with the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), yesterday reached an agreement with the Treasury Board on the final texts of the new 2023-2028 employment contract for professionals in the Francophone school service centres and Anglophone school boards it represents.

The parties hope to formally sign the collective agreement within the next two weeks.

Once concluded, the negotiations leading to this agreement will have lasted more than one year.

"The advances achieved through these negotiations, in particular the salary improvements, were made possible by a historic mobilization of professionals throughout Quebec in solidarity with the Front commun," said Jacques Landry, President of the FPPE-CSQ.

The intersectoral agreements negotiated by the CSQ and the Front commun will give all Quebec professionals salary increases of 17.4% over five years.

Professionals can expect to receive a salary scale adjustment payment within 45 days of the signing of the agreement.

Salary increases retroactive to April 1, 2023, will also be paid within 60 days of the signing.

Professionals who are no longer employed will have 120 days to request retroactive salary increases from their employers, which must make the payments within 60 days of the request.

In addition to the salary increases, the new collective agreements will improve the working conditions of professional education staff. They include gains on vacations, insurance, telework, working hour arrangements, payment of overtime, benefits for supernumerary employees, a partial reimbursement of fees paid to professional orders, an expansion and 2.5% salary increase for members holding a master's degree, bonuses for psychoeducators performing intern supervision and mentoring, as well as a salary increase and bonus for psychologists.

Professionals can review the changes made to the collective agreement on La Passerelle Négo at https://www.fppe.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/LaPasserelleNego_FR_Fev2024.pdf.

The FPPE-CSQ takes this opportunity to lament the fact that the negotiations for Northern Quebec teachers are also dragging on due to a lack of government initiative.

"Cree and Inuit communities and schools have glaring needs. With this in mind, the unreasonable delays in the Northern negotiations must be denounced, as it is the students and staff who are paying the price," concluded Landry.

The Fédération des professionnelles et professionnels de l'éducation du Québec (FPPE-CSQ) represents 19 unions bringing together 12,500 members spread across almost all school service centers and school boards in Quebec, Francophone, Anglophone, Cree and Kativik. Its members include different categories of staff in the administrative sectors (engineers, analysts, Project Development Office, etc.), educational sectors (Education Consultants, librarians, etc.) and in direct services to students (psychologists, psychoeducators, speech therapists or Audiologists, guidance counselors, etc.).

SOURCE Fédération des professionnelles et professionnels de l''Éducation du Québec (FPPE-CSQ)