Government engineers' union files obstruction complaint against Quebec

A road construction site on Autoroute 20, photographed on Sept. 19, 2024 near Lévis. (The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot) (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

The union representing Quebec’s 2,050 government engineers has filed a complaint against the Quebec government for obstructing union activities and bargaining in bad faith.

The Association professionnelle des ingénieurs du gouvernement (APIGQ) has been negotiating with the Treasury Board for two years to renew its collective agreement. Its members are currently on evening, night and weekend strike.

According to the union, the dispute between the two parties concerns remote work and the reorganization of engineers' offices.

It is in the context of the reorganization of engineers' offices that this complaint has been lodged with the Quebec labour tribunal.

The APIGQ argues that engineers need a space that allows them to concentrate and keep their attention on their tasks.

The union reports that, for Quebec, the issue of office layout is not a matter for negotiation with the union.

“The respondent stated on this occasion that office layouts do not constitute a working condition for them and are therefore non-negotiable, adding that engineers, for their part, want to benefit from new workspaces, but that it is the APIGQ that is opposing it,” the union wrote in its complaint.

In its complaint, the APIGQ refers in particular to the formation of a “barometer committee” on the reorganization of engineers' offices, on which engineers sit, but which were “unilaterally appointed” by Quebec.

“Engineers who are members of the bargaining unit represented by the APIGQ are therefore being consulted on a central issue in the negotiations under way between the respondent and the APIGQ,” the union denounced in its complaint.

The engineers' union accuses the Quebec government of having conducted “sham negotiations” by appointing engineers to sit on the committee, disregarding its power to represent its members.

The engineers' union is therefore asking the court to order Quebec to stop obstructing its activities and to “cease designating the representatives of unionized engineers itself and negotiating with them the working conditions that must be agreed and approved with the union.”

APIGQ is also asking the court to declare that Quebec City negotiated in bad faith and to order it to continue negotiations on the reorganization of workspaces.

The union is also asking the court to order Quebec to pay it moral and punitive damages, which have yet to be determined.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 25, 2025.