Last day of strike Tuesday by 2,400 STM maintenance employees

The 2,400 maintenance employees of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) are holding the final day of their strike on Tuesday, but their union, Syndicat du transport de Montréal-CSN, warns that negotiations must be resolved quickly, otherwise the STM is “looking forward to a hot fall.”

For this final day of the strike, bus and metro service is once again operating at 100 per cent during morning and afternoon rush hours, as well as late evening, while it is reduced to 50 per cent of its usual schedule outside of these periods.

The strike, which began on June 9, will officially end at 10 p.m. Tuesday evening. From that point on, STM service will resume its normal schedule.

“We expect negotiations to progress during the summer, but if there’s no progress, the STM is planning a hot fall,” union president Bruno Jeannotte stated in a press release.

At the beginning of the strike, Jeannotte had suggested that maintenance workers were holding discussions with the drivers’ union and the office workers’ union to possibly expand the strike movement.

The bus drivers and metro operators’ union, which is not part of the same central union as the maintenance workers’ union, has also issued a strike mandate, but has not yet announced when it will exercise it. The bus drivers and metro operators’ union is a local of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, affiliated with the FTQ, while the maintenance employees’ union is part of the Fédération des employés des services publics, affiliated with the CSN.

For maintenance employees, the main point of contention in the talks continues to be the use of subcontracting. The STM says it needs flexibility, while the union says it is fighting against the privatization of certain services.

“It’s not by cutting our working conditions that we’ll succeed in recruiting staff. It’s not by increasing subcontracting that we’ll succeed in properly maintaining the metros and buses,” argued Jeannotte.

“As the strike ends today, we expect the STM to come to the bargaining table open to finally changing course,” he insisted.

Schedules, related to night work, are also a point of contention.

The union is also calling on governments to invest more in public transit.

The STM maintenance workers’ strike began on June 9. During the first phase of the strike, for three days, there was no service outside of essential service periods, causing numerous headaches for public transit users.

The strike was suspended for the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend. Safety reasons were cited as the reason for the pause, due to the large number of people expected to travel to Notre-Dame Island.

Both parties accepted Labour Minister Jean Boulet’s proposal to appoint a mediator to facilitate discussions. The first mediation meeting took place on Monday.

This is a pivotal time for the STM, as it must work on renewing the collective agreements of four of the six union accreditations.

“Discussions are actively continuing at the negotiating table,” the transportation company’s website states.

The full schedule can be found at stm.info.

— With information from Lia Lévesque

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews