An additional bonus to reduce waiting lists at the DPJ

Photo: Jacques Boissinot La Presse canadienne «C’est important pour les intervenantes, qui font un travail extrêmement difficile. J’ai toujours dit qu’il fallait valoriser leur travail», a déclaré le ministre responsable des Services sociaux, Lionel Carmant, mardi.

To reduce waiting lists at the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ), workers in the network will now be entitled to a new bonus. Their union concluded an “exceptional agreement” on Tuesday that will allow them to receive incentives of up to $170 for working overtime.

The agreement reached with the Legault government is not part of the Common Front agreements signed earlier this year. Valid until 2028, it will offer certain youth protection workers “additional bonuses of $140 to $170 per full shift worked in overtime.”

These amounts will be made available to employees assigned to processing reports, assessments, or “application of measures” — or monitoring cases. The only downside is that they can only be paid when “waiting lists reach a critical level.”

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“We have ministerial targets. To help us achieve them, we will pay for this work 24/7,” said the Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, on Tuesday, when approached by Le Devoir before question period.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the waiting time for an assessment at the DPJ was almost 50 days.

With its new bonus offered to workers, François Legault's government wants to “improve the agreement for the DPJ” that it concluded in January with the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS), as a member of the Front commun syndical. “This is important for the workers, who do an extremely difficult job. “I have always said that we must value their work,” said Lionel Carmant on Tuesday.

In April, several DPJ workers said in the pages of Devoir that they were “left wanting more” at the end of negotiations between their union and the Treasury Board. Especially since, a few months earlier, Minister Carmant had assured them that he was working hard to offer them “significant” salary increases.

“Short-term” solution

Even though his teams accepted this new bonus, in order to “reduce waiting lists” once and for all, APTS President Robert Comeau can’t help but think that this is a temporary solution. Contacted Tuesday, he deplored the fact that the government didn’t take advantage of last year’s negotiations to offer more structural benefits to DPJ workers.

“I don’t think it will have a very big effect on retaining people. It will have an effect on waiting lists, probably, but it doesn’t bring additional hands into the network,” he commented on the other end of the line.

“Yes, they made an effort during the last negotiation, but now, we’re continually fixing one thing to create a problem elsewhere. […] What we will deal with quickly at the entrance will be shaken up at the exit,” he added.

Robert Comeau assures that he is “committed to ensuring that reports are processed as quickly as possible,” which is why the union he represents has signed a new targeted agreement with Quebec. “We share the objective, but it’s the means on which we agree a little less,” he said. “We are convinced that this is short-term and that it won’t solve anything in the long term.”

During the last public sector negotiations, DPJ workers saw their salaries increased by 17.4% until 2028, in addition to being granted a bonus of 6% to 10% calculated according to the number of hours worked. This replaces another 7% bonus previously offered to workers.