STM: second strike begins as professionals join maintenance workers

People board an STM bus, in Montreal on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

A second strike has just begun at Montreal’s transit agency (STM), with 800 professionals joining the 2,400 maintenance workers already on strike.

The local branch of the Syndicat des employé(e)s professionnel(le)s et de bureau (SEPB), affiliated with the FTQ, also launched an overtime strike at 12:01 a.m. The strike is set to last until Jan. 11.

This is the union’s first strike in its 31-year history.

This union represents professionals such as engineers, analysts, architects, and consultants who work in IT, planning, infrastructure, and finance, for example.

When this union of professionals announced that it would exercise its strike mandate, the STM said that “no impact on service delivery is expected” for users.

This SEPB professional strike is in addition to the strike by maintenance workers, affiliated with the CSN, which has been ongoing since Dec. 11. This strike is also over a refusal to work overtime.

In both cases, essential services must be maintained, and the Administrative Labor Tribunal has already ruled on this issue.

- By Lia Lévesque

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Dec. 17, 2025.