Quebec’s labour tribunal ordered the province’s largest nurses’ union to abandon a coordinated refusal of overtime planned for September 19, 2024. The tribunal found that the pressure tactic risked harming health services to which the public was entitled.
The union represented about 80,000 workers
The Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec represented nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and clinical perfusionists. Its members had worked without a renewed collective agreement for more than 500 days.
The dispute involved pay, scheduling, mobility and working conditions.
Members planned a collective overtime refusal
The FIQ had instructed members to stop accepting overtime as a bargaining measure. Although an individual may have rights concerning excessive hours, a coordinated union directive is assessed under rules protecting essential public services.
The tribunal examined the collective effect across the health network.
The order stopped the planned action
Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail concluded that the measure could prejudice services and directed the FIQ to end coordinated steps encouraging refusal. The union said it would comply and told members to continue their normal professional duties.
The ruling did not declare that nurses must accept every conceivable unsafe shift.
Essential-service law shaped the decision
Health workers retain labour rights, including lawful strike action, but unions must maintain required services. The legal framework attempts to preserve meaningful bargaining without exposing patients to a sudden systemwide withdrawal of critical care.
That balance is especially difficult when routine operations already rely heavily on overtime.
The ruling exposed a staffing problem
If removing voluntary extra hours could seriously destabilize hospitals, the network may have little reserve capacity. Nurses have long argued that compulsory overtime contributes to exhaustion, turnover and unsafe conditions.
A legal order can maintain immediate service without solving chronic vacancies or scheduling pressure.
Negotiations continued with a conciliator
A conciliator had delivered recommendations to the parties, and the union convened an extraordinary council to consider the next steps. Members had rejected a previous proposed settlement by 61 per cent in the spring.
Any later agreement still required the union’s ratification process.
A strike mandate remained subject to safeguards
The FIQ retained a strike mandate, but using it required compliance with essential-service obligations and applicable notices. The overtime order therefore restricted one tactic rather than ending collective bargaining.
Government and union negotiators remained responsible for finding durable terms.
Patients and workers had overlapping interests
Patients need uninterrupted emergency, intensive and inpatient care. They also need rested professionals, predictable staffing and retention over the long term.
Framing the dispute as workers versus patients can obscure how unsafe workloads may harm both.
The immediate result was continuity, not resolution
Scheduled services avoided the abrupt disruption threatened by the coordinated refusal. Yet the underlying conflict over flexibility, workload and compensation remained.
Accurate reporting should distinguish the union instruction from individual professional judgment, the tribunal’s interim protection of services from a final contract, and a continuing strike mandate from an unrestricted right to withdraw care. The order bought time; a negotiated and adequately staffed system was still needed to address why overtime had become central to both health delivery and labour leverage.
