Thousands of Revenu Quebec employees threaten to strike

A Revenu Québec inspector’s badge. (Source: Revenu Québec)

Revenu Quebec union members are threatening to walk off the job on evenings and weekends after 93.4 per cent voted in favour of a strike mandate at a general meeting held from May 16 to 19.

It is not known when the work stoppages might happen.

Guillaume Bouvrette, third vice-president of the Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnels du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ), said in a statement Thursday that union members are insulted by Revenu Quebec's wage offer.

The union says workers are being offered a salary increase of two per cent per year, retroactive to 2020, 2021 and 2022.

However, Bouvrette notes the rate of inflation in Canada was measured in April at almost seven per cent.

He argues Revenu Quebec union members have worked hard to maintain government services under difficult conditions throughout the health crisis, and they are now being betrayed.

The union says it wants to reduce the gap in overall compensation between Revenu Quebec and Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) employees, whose compensation is 30 per cent higher in some cases and who benefit from a 100 per cent indexed pension plan.

Bouvrette is also criticizing the employer for wanting to establish a sub-category of part-time professionals with atypical schedules, inferior work conditions and a unilateral telecommuting plan, whereas he says CRA favours flexibility.

He argues Revenu Quebec risks causing a wave of departures to the CRA and the private sector.

Unionized employees work primarily in administration, communications, accounting, audit, collections and investigations, law, taxation, human resources and information technology.

Their collective agreement expired in March 2021.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 26, 2022.