Quebec’s 25,000 hairdressers want their pension fund

Hairdressers in Quebec who are struggling to make ends meet would also like to be entitled to a well-stocked pension fund so that they can take it easy in their old age.

“If it had been introduced when I started, I would have been fulfilled,” shares Diane Morissette, hairdresser from Saint-Basile-le-Grand, with nearly 40 years of profession.

If she was fortunate enough to buy her home at the age of 19 thanks to her father’s advice to raise money for her retirement, this is not the case for many hairdressers who find themselves the spout in the water after their career.

Hard on the body

“When we have almost 40 years of work, we feel it in our body because it is physically difficult, a bit like mechanics,” continues the one who had a salon for 15 years before returning to self-employment.

According to a recent Léger survey on the happiness at work index prepared for The newspaper, hairdressers are the third most happy professions.

However, despite this, thousands of them still do not have a pension fund, deplores Gervais Bisson, president of the Professional Association of Hairdressing Employers of Quebec (APECQ), who wants to clean up.

Undeclared work, tax evasion, lack of training for teachers and students … APECQ denounces the current jungle, which undermines the credibility of the profession.

Create a professional order

According to Gervais Bisson, we must create a professional order of hairdressing in Quebec to supervise the profession and set up a retirement fund.

“We have been walking from one ministry to another, from one government to another for more than 10 years, and it drops to zero all the time. So there, we decided to have a lobbyist to move forward, ”he explains.

“At a minimum, 95% of hairdressers do not have retirement funds. They are entitled to it and employers are ready to pay 50% of their employees’ retirement funds, the rest would be paid by the worker, ”he continues.

According to the Professional Association of Hairdressing Employers of Quebec, if each hairdresser contributes $ 16.50 per week for 52 weeks, the amount collected will be close to $ 21.5 million per year.

According to APECQ calculations, the distribution of the contribution could be 75% for the pension fund, or $ 16 million, and 25% for the management of the law, or $ 5.4 million.

To advance its case, the association has two registered lobbyists who have the mandate to educate the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet.

Meetings, written communications, phone calls … The organization hopes that the National Assembly will adopt a framework law for the creation of a professional order of hairdressing in Quebec.

A hairdresser with an annual salary of $ 30,000 with a 3% contribution, an assumption of return of 6% and an inflation of 2% would get $ 103,542 after 35 years, according to one of the scenarios of the Professional Association of Quebec hairdressing employers (APECQ).



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