Negotiations aim to avert Nunavik teachers’ strike that could start Thursday
Union, school board and government have been in talks for more than 2 years
A group of Nunavik teachers, with union president Larry Imbeault in the middle, strike in front of the Kativik Ilisarniliriniq headquarters in Montreal in 2021. (File photo by Stéphanie Ricci)
Nunavik’s school board and the union representing the board’s teachers resumed contract talks Wednesday in hopes of averting a strike scheduled to start Thursday.
Negotiations for a new collective agreement for Kativik Ilisarniliriniq teachers started in October 2022. The former contract expired in May 2023.
“Many have a lot of hope for today’s meeting,” said Larry Imbeault, president of the Association of Employees in Northern Quebec, Wednesday in a French phone interview. “We hope that today may unfreeze something which could cancel the strike.”
“If not,” he added, “people are ready to strike.”
If no agreement is reached, approximately 450 teachers across all 14 Nunavik communities plan a temporary strike that would run from Thursday at 11 a.m. until Jan. 21 at 11 a.m., affecting four school days.
In addition to picket lines in Nunavik, the union said members will also protest in front of the board headquarters in Montreal at the same time.
“People are motivated, they have solidarity,” Imbeault said.
In an announcement on its website, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq said that if a strike occurs all Nunavik schools will be closed to students during that time and classes will resume Jan. 21 after lunch break.
All staff who are not members of the striking union will be required to go to work.
Jade Bernier, the school board’s communications co-ordinator, declined to comment on the situation.
The union is negotiating with both the school board and Quebec’s executive treasury council.
“The government is sensitive to the particularities and the issues in northern Quebec and Nunavik,” said Marie-Hélène Demers, council spokesperson, in a French email to Nunatsiaq News.
She said an agreement-in-principle was achieved with the Cree school board in November 2024 that includes improved financial premiums paid to teachers who work there.
This has been a point of contention for teachers in Nunavik, who have not seen their own premiums updated since 2001.
“The government is proposing to the [Nunavik] union a measure that would improve attraction and retention of staff, and offer a better service to students,” Demers said.
The Cree school board reaching an agreement on its premiums has created a disparity between teachers in Nunavik and in Eeyou Istchee, the Cree region.
Imbeault said that in Kuujjuaraapik and Whapmagoostui, a teacher who works in the Cree section of town would currently be paid about $25,000 more than one working in the Inuit section.
“What we want are similar premiums,” he said.
If the four-day strike goes ahead and at the end of it there is still no negotiated settlement, the union’s final weapon would be a general strike.
“We hope that even this week’s strike gets suspended” and a collective agreement is reached, Imbeault said.
“But if we don’t have a choice, then we won’t have a choice.”
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