The union representing municipal employees in Fort-Coulonge signed their first collective agreement with the municipality’s management on June 22. The seven municipal employees other than the director general (DG) are covered under this five-year collective agreement, which expires in Dec. 2029.
Michel Ladouceur, the town’s public works supervisor, who also heads the local union, said that one of the main reasons employees decided to unionize was to stabilize their jobs through the turnover in councils as well as DGs.
“Everybody brings their set of rules when they come in and we didn’t find that fair for the workers, that the rules change every four years.” He said he was familiar with the CSN union from his time working in construction, and they helped the employees with the process. The negotiations began in Jan. 2025 with the previous council.
Ladouceur said that one of the big discussion points was compensation for working on weekends.
“The money was never the problem, it was more the conditions, like the weekends, stuff like that,” he said, noting that there is now also an allowance for on-call employees.
Fort-Coulonge mayor Pierre Cyr said that the town’s blue collar workers agreed to reduce their hours from 40 per week to 37, but in the winter they will receive overtime for working more than three hours on weekends.
“[Previously in the winter months] the schedule of the employees becomes variable, two days on three days off, fixed so you always have people on the weekends,” he explained. “They were not willing to do that so they decided to offer to do less hours, so the money we save every week compensates for whatever overtime we have to pay. It’s a good deal for them, it’s a good deal for us.”
“They have premiums now for the weekends, except for winters,” he added. “They agreed to come for the first three hours for the weekend, normal time. It’s a good concession on their part and it gives us flexibility and they keep their weekends.”
Staff will receive 2.5 per cent pay raises per year, though two staff received more significant increases because they were determined to have below-average salaries for their level of responsibilities. Staff also received a half per cent retroactively for 2025.
Cyr added that he had concerns with the negotiations made by the previous council, and went back to the drawing board with some elements of the negotiations that had been agreed to before he was elected.
“We had quite a few discussions, and we had a legal councillor on this that I didn’t want to use too much because they’re pretty expensive. We ended up with a mediator and [ . . . ] we fought our way back and I think we got a decent agreement.”
He said one thing he wanted some compromise from the union on was having to maintain a set number of staff.
“The main thing was to be able to manage the level of staff of the municipality, that was really important for us,” he said. “So if you had an intermunicipal agreement on garbage, let’s say, you still have to keep the employees, even if they’re not doing the job anymore.”
He highlighted the work of interim DG Ken Bérubé, who was hired in April, saying he was a big help with the negotiations. Bérubé’s position is not permanent as the municipality’s DG is currently on sick leave.
“We’re really lucky to have Ken, he’s quite experienced and knows how to deal with people,” Cyr said. “He’s a big part of us being able to get a deal with the union.”
He said that after all the work, he was pleased to have the agreement finalized.
“We were able to get the best out of this for the [town], for the citizens, because they’re the ones paying the bill at the end of the day.”
