Public service union denounces the general management of MRC Pontiac

Public service union denounces the general management of MRC Pontiac

In an interview with CHIP 101.9, Michel Girard , the regional president of the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ), which represents employees at the MRC Pontiac, was critical of the general management of the MRC.

In negotiations for the renewal of their 5-year collective agreement, Girard not only criticized the general management’s strategy, but even pointed to a high turnover rate at the MRC office and said that the workplace atmosphere could partly explain this situation. He hoped that the MRC’s elected officials will also ask themselves the same question, namely, what is the explanation for the situation at the MRC Pontiac? According to data from the union, 28 people have left their position for various reasons at the MRC Pontiac over the past 5 years.

“Yes, indeed, I had done research on this,” he said (translated). “Let’s say, all job categories combined and I am including the management staff, in 5 years there have been around 30 employees who have left. And I’ve removed the retirees … This means that, for all job categories combined, we’ve had around thirty people who left in 5 years for somewhat nebulous reasons. So there, we didn’t do the research, but the information I have is probably because it’s not too pleasant to work at the MRC. I do not know. It’s a conclusion that I think may be the case, but I’ll leave it at that…”

CHIP 101.9 had sent a request to the MRC in early August for a detailed breakdown of days of leave, staff turnover, the number of employees over the past five years. MRC Pontiac Director General Bernard Roy, through clerk Travis Ladouceur, refused to divulge any of the information. More than a month after the initial request, the MRC hasn’t even divulged how many employees they have had over the past five years.

“We don’t have to ask ourselves … Basically, we are entitled to ask ourselves the question, how come there is so much staff turnover?” Girard said (translated). “When we see how things have been going since the start of the pandemic, when we see that there is no opportunity for teleworking, we don’t seem to want to move forward like all the other MRCs before, we are entitled to to ask questions. I hope that the mayors too, they will ask themselves the same question as us.”

The full (French-language) interview with Girard is available here.