Legault open to putting more money on table as 570,000 public workers strike

With unions representing nearly 570,000 public sector workers picketing across the province on Thursday, Quebec's premier says the province is willing to offer them more money.

François Legault said a new offer with a bigger salary increase was possible, but the unions need to make some sacrifices.

"We are open to putting more if, and only if, we get more flexibility." Legault said. "Everytime, we discuss too much about the money and not enough about the flexibility."

While Legault was speaking with reporters, public sector workers were protesting across the province and in Montreal, where demonstrations clogged up some major road arteries on Thursday.

Buses full of strikers arrived near Jarry Park on Thursday morning and education workers began to march down St-Laurent Boulevard to Mont-Royal Avenue before making their way toward the Georges-Étienne Cartier monument on Parc Avenue.

The crowd, mostly composed of striking teachers and education workers carrying signs, blowing horns and creating a din that filled the nearby area, extended down St-Laurent Boulevard for more than a kilometre. 

Workers with the common front of unions also protested in front of the National Assembly in Quebec City.

A teachers union, the Fédération autonome de l'enseignement (FAE), which represents some 66,000 educators in elementary and secondary schools, starts its indefinite general strike today.

At the same time, the province's largest nurses' union, the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), which is made up of 80,000 nurses, practical nurses, respiratory therapists and other health-care professionals, is also hitting the picket line. Those workers will be striking both today and tomorrow, though they say essential services will be maintained.

The coalition of public sector unions known as the common front, which boasts 420,000 health, social services and education workers, is also on strike today.

Included in the common front are four separate unions: the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS) and the fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ).

Another union has also joined the strike.

Seven hundred workers from 10 colleges, members from the Syndicat des professionnels du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ), are striking both Thursday and Friday.

"It's going to be the biggest strike ever in Canada," said CSN vice-president François Enault.