LABOUR RELATIONS
Extension of the psychiatry premium: the APTS scores a first victory before the arbitrator

The APTS achieved a significant gain in the 2021 contract talks when the psychiatry premium was extended to a greater number of employees. This premium allows people working in some activity centres, who do not meet eligibility criteria for floating days off in psychiatry as defined in Article 22 of the national provisions, to obtain additional compensation equal to 2.2% of their salary. But according to some institutions, the new clause (37.07 B) means that everyone working in the activity centres named in the clause has now lost the right to the floating days off.

The APTS has filed several grievances on this issue, and a first decision, involving the CISSS de la Gaspésie, was handed down by arbitrator Julie Blouin on September 13. Blouin fully agreed with the union’s arguments and confirmed that Article 22 on floating days off takes precedence over the new clause regarding compensation. Adding a list of activity centres for financial compensation was not intended to abolish floating days off for people who benefitted from them under Article 22; the goal was to give additional compensation (2.2%) to people who were not eligible for the floating days off. Let’s hope this unequivocal victory will induce other institutions to change their position!

For more information, see the news item on aptsq.com.

ORGANIZATION OF WORK AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
Bursaries in medical imaging and for medical labs

The labour shortage and the lack of a younger generation of recruits in medical imaging and medical labs have led the MSSS (Ministry of Health and Social Services) to launch a bursary program providing an incentive to students who want to carry out a course of study leading to jobs as medical technologists or radio-diagnostic, nuclear medicine, medical imaging (sonography), radiation oncology, or medical electrophysiology technologists. The program covers all Québec regions and provides 550 study bursaries, each of which is worth $12,000.

The APTS response to this announcement is lukewarm, even though we actively campaigned to get the Ministry to widen its bursary programs in order to include these areas of study. The bursaries, in fact, are intended not to attract new recruits, but to retain them: they are offered only to people who have reached the last year of their program of study. We also regret the fact that their number is so limited, and that those who receive them will be required to work for only two years in the public health care system after obtaining their diploma. Apparently we need to go on making the same point: to improve the situation, the Ministry really needs to start by acknowledging the value of these professions and improving their conditions of work and practice.

SOCIO-POLITICAL ACTION
The private sector in health and social services: how to talk to people about it

Do you care about the future of the health and social services system? Are you concerned about the challenges it’s facing? Would you like to explore the issues further and help the people around you understand them better? Are you wondering what you can do to change things? If so, the APTS Alert is for you! In this issue, you’ll find ways of talking to friends and family about the impact of the private sector on health and social services, without having to quarrel with them (or almost!).

Dubé reform |Private mini-hospitals,
an old idea to help us repeat old mistakes

Building two private mini-hospitals was one of the CAQ’s key promises during the last election campaign. This was touted as an innovative solution to overcrowded emergency rooms, and is part of what we might call the “privatization section” of the Dubé reform. But the CAQ’s private mini-hospitals are really no more than version 2.0 of the private “superclinics” created in 2016 by former health minister Gaétan Barrette. IRIS recently published an analysis of the superclinics clearly demonstrating that while this model has favoured the emergence and consolidation of a kind of “Medicine Inc.” in Québec, it fails miserably at answering Quebecers’ needs. Worth reading and sharing!