STM maintenance workers are officially on strike

Commuters are being asked to plan ahead as more STM strike days coming.

Approximately 2,400 Société de transport de Montréal (STM) maintenance workers are on strike starting Monday, disrupting Metro and bus services until early next week.

Until Wednesday, buses and Metro are scheduled to run only during morning and afternoon rush hours, as well as late in the evening.

Outside these periods, service is set to be suspended.

• READ MORE: STM strike: What you need to know to get around Montreal

The Syndicat du transport de Montréal-Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) justified the strike by citing the employer’s “stubbornness” in wanting to “cut back on maintenance employees’ working conditions.”

It claims that the STM “is stubbornly maintaining its demands for the creation of atypical schedules and the relocation of employees throughout its facilities.”

For its part, the STM argues that its network operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which necessitates employees on all shifts.

It adds that its financial situation requires it to “operate at the right cost” and that “this must be reflected in the current collective agreement negotiations in order to respect the ability of (its) financial backers to pay.”

On Thursday, service is set to be 100 per cent during peak periods, which will be extended by one hour, and 50 per cent outside of peak periods.

From Friday to Sunday, service will be maintained at its usual level for the Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

On Monday and Tuesday next week, service is scheduled to be provided at 100 per cent during peak periods and 50 per cent outside of peak periods.

Paratransit service will be maintained at all times.

School bus service will also be maintained, but no service will be offered outside of peak hours from Monday to Wednesday this week.

The provision of essential services has been approved by the Administrative Labour Tribunal.

READ MORE: F1 Grand Prix: How to get around Montreal

“For those who are able to do so, we invite you to consider, whenever possible, using active modes of transportation (walking, cycling, etc.) or working from home during this period,” said the STM.

No compensation is planned for users who have purchased monthly or weekly passes.

Impact on transit users

At 9:39 a.m. Monday, one minute after the end of the morning rush hour, an STM employee closed up the Berri-UQAM Metro station.

“The other side is blocked. You have to exit through Berri. There are no more trains,” the employee told users, some of whom seemed visibly surprised.

One commuter, Michael Yao, told The Canadian Press he would not be walking three hours to the accounting office where he works, near the Côte-Vertu Metro station.

“It’s a lost day of work. It’s serious, and I have to find a way to get back home to Longueuil,” he said.

• READ MORE: Montreal bus drivers and metro operators vote in favour of strike

Leaving the Longueuil Metro station on Montreal’s South Shore just after 9 a.m., Yao said he thought he would be able to transfer at the Berri-UQAM station to the Orange line.

Instead, he was asked to leave the station.

“I knew there was a strike, but I thought there was minimum service,” he said.

For its part, the STM says it has created a special website to inform its customers about the status of the network, the latest updates and important information about the strike.

Strikes could escalate

Monday, union president Bruno Jeannotte warned that the strike could escalate if negotiations are not concluded soon.

“We are in discussions with the drivers’ union,” he said at a press conference in front of the STM offices, adding he is also in talks with the union representing office workers.

The bus drivers’ and Metro operators’ union is not part of the federation that oversees maintenance workers.

• READ MORE: Significant reductions to Montreal bus, Metro service during nine-day strike

It is a local branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), affiliated with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ), while the maintenance workers’ union is part of the Fédération des employé(e)s des services publics, affiliated with the CSN.

The union representing bus drivers and Metro operators has a strike mandate but has not yet announced when it will exercise it.

Alongside Jeannotte, CSN first vice-president François Enault urged the Quebec government to increase funding for public transport companies, such as the STM, rather than “paving the road between Lévis and Quebec City,” in reference to the Third Link.

– This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 9, 2024.