Nearly 200 workers hold one-day strike at Olympic Park in Montreal

Nearly 200 workers at Olympic Park are holding a one-day strike in Montreal on Monday.

The strike began at midnight on Sunday night and will end at 11:59 p.m. on Monday evening.

This is their first day on the picket line, with a five-day strike mandate to be exercised at the appropriate time.

They include office workers, accountants, building maintenance workers, technicians, communications professionals and engineers.

These unions are attached to the Fédération des employé(e)s des services publics and the Fédération des professionnels(le)s, which are affiliated to the CSN.

The collective agreement expired on March 31, 2023. The parties had completed negotiation of the normative clauses in the summer of 2023, then agreed to postpone negotiations on the wage clauses until the public and parapublic sector negotiations were concluded.

Since then, government employees have settled for 17.4 per cent increases over five years.

Olympic Park union members thought they’d get it automatically, but the employer and the Conseil du trésor are asking for more “flexibility” in return for such increases. The Conseil du trésor has always maintained that these increases were granted in the public sector in return for greater flexibility in work organization, so as to offer more services to the public.

The union maintains that this demand for greater flexibility would translate into greater job insecurity for its members, notably by reducing the number of permanent positions to make way for temporary ones.

“We’re defending know-how that’s essential to the Stade’s long-term survival. With the difficulties we’ve experienced in recent years, our employer can’t afford to make our jobs insecure,” commented Nouhoum Doumbia, President of the Syndicat des bureaux-techniques du Parc olympique.

Asked to respond, Olympic Park management explained that they “are currently undertaking major modernization projects at the Montreal Tower and Olympic Stadium to ensure that they can host large-scale events and activities 365 days a year, as soon as they reopen. It is in this context that we are asking for flexibility. It would apply only to certain types of jobs, and only to a certain percentage of those jobs that would be created from 2026 onwards. Current employees will keep their Monday-to-Friday working hours.”

“We are prepared to increase the salaries of all employees significantly to achieve greater flexibility in the management of resources that will allow the smooth running of the Olympic Park throughout the year,” management added.

The workers have a further four strike days, “which may be used in the coming weeks if no progress is made at the negotiating table,” warns the union side.

The management side wants to maintain dialogue. “We are available to continue discussions and we have everything to gain by agreeing to this improved wage offer.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews