More than 400,000 state employees in Quebec, negotiating a new collective agreement, have started a strike that could last several days. Administrative and support staff at hospitals and schools, as well as teachers, are demanding better pay, but above all improvement in their working conditions. In Quebec, all public sector employees are unionized and must go on strike if this is the method of action that was voted on.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Quebec, Pascale Guéricolas
Among the demonstrators, a large number of teachers denounce the little support they receive in class in the face of increasingly serious cases. “ We have more and more children in difficulty in our classes, the classes are more and more crowded, so obviously the classes become difficult to manage », Explains a teacher.
Faced with a lack of school psychologists and speech therapists, teachers have the impression of being left to their own devices in ever-increasing classes: “ I have a student who doesn’t speak French and we haven’t given her more support than what I have to offer.says this college professor. And I have to find internships for my students externally, I have to do lots of things, but we keep adding to them. »
Teachers out of breath
Many teachers resign from their position, faced with the heavy work required. “ There is collective fed up associated with our working conditions. Our task is titanic, we are out of breath. We need help, we need to breathe and be able to do what we were hired to do, which is to teach young people », insists this professor who came to demonstrate with her children.
A conciliator has just been appointed to try to promote negotiations between the government and its employees, the goals of which remain very distant for the moment.
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