At a general meeting on August 21, the 19 firefighters in Saint-Donat-de-Montcalm in the Lanaudière region, who unionized in 2022, unanimously ratified their first-ever tentative agreement reached with the employer on July 3. The objective was to consolidate their gains, establish recourse in the event of disputes and make general improvements to their working conditions.
The five-year agreement will be valid until 2028 and includes a new three-step wage structure, the creation of an employment floor and measures to ensure job security for workers along with a single wage rate for any work activity.
“We’re proud that our members now have their very first collective agreement, which includes working conditions more representative of the firefighting sector we operate in every single day,” declared Claude Rivest, president of CUPE 7159.
Some of the numerous gains in this agreement include improvements to life insurance, increases in vacation allotments, compensation for statutory holidays, wage increases for officers and a signing bonus.
The public also comes out ahead, as the contract will ensure better coverage by the fire department. In addition to maintaining the on-call staff on weekends when four firefighters are at the station, the agreement includes a progressive introduction of on-call hours on weekdays up to 30 hours from Monday to Friday effective January 1, 2025.