Full STM strike this weekend; Legault won’t invoke closure to prevent it

Bus drivers and metro operators at the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) have been permitted to go on strike this weekend, in a decision handed down Wednesday night by the Administrative Labour Tribunal.

From 4 a.m. on Nov. 15 to 3:59 a.m. on Nov. 17, STM services will be completely suspended, with the exception of paratransit services, if no agreement is reached between the union and the employer.

“We are extremely disappointed with the judgment,” said Katherine Roux Groleau, the director of public affairs for the STM.

Before rendering its decision, the TAT heard concerns from several organizations, including Aéroport de Montréal, Trajectoire Québec, and FADOQ, which requested that STM services be considered essential.

“The Tribunal considers that the issues and concerns raised by the various stakeholders are important, but are not of a nature that poses a danger to public health or safety,” the TAT wrote in a statement, noting that the right to strike “enjoys constitutional protection.”

The TAT also noted that the STM had reached an agreement with the unions, back in April, that maintaining adapted services alone was sufficient to ensure public health and safety, in anticipation of the strikes.

“However, (STM) emphasized that it now considers the agreement to be insufficient for the strike scheduled for the weekend,” the TAT wrote.

The union representing the bus drivers and metro operators says those weekend strike days could still be avoided.

“We are working tirelessly to finalize these negotiations. We are close to an agreement,” said Frédéric Therrien, president of CUPE 1983. “We still have time before Saturday. The ball is in the STM’s court.”

Commuter confusion

TAT’s decision Wednesday night came on the heels of STM maintenance workers calling off their strike that began on Nov. 1 and was set to go until Nov. 28.

Commuters appeared to be left confused and frustrated by the news of the weekend strike just as services were returning to normal on Wednesday.

“I hear (about the weekend strike), but I also hear that they’ve gone off strike, so I don’t know what’s going on,” said Farzand Ahmed.

Amir Khojastehnezhad, a PhD student, said the restricted service during the maintenance worker strike already was hard on him. He had to leave school to pick up his kid much earlier.

“I think they should have a very good deal with the government and finish soon this problem for all people in the Montreal and Quebec,” Khojastehnezhad said.

Mike Lafaille, the chef-owner of Kwizinn Restaurant in Old Montreal, says the upcoming weekend strike is making him brace for impact.

“Every weekend, we expect to have 80 to 100 clients at night. I’ve seen this number drop by like 30 per cent, easily,” Lafaille told CityNews. “People come from everywhere to come visit the Old Port. It doesn’t motivate them.”

Lafaille says business has dipped since transit disruptions began, adding the only thing he can do is hold out hope the dispute will soon come to an end.

“I think at least a month of December, government should really give us a break.”

Commuter advocacy group Trajectoire Québec says the tribunal is not being proactive enough to prevent serious consequences.

“We just fear that they wait for some people dying from complication … then they will be able to say, ‘OK, we need essential services, here’s the proof,’” said the group’s co-general manager Philippe Jacques.

No closure to advance Bill 14

On Thursday, Premier Legault said his government won’t be invoking closure — which allows the government to ram through a legislation without a debate in the National Assembly — to advance Bill 14. The law would give the labour minister to intervene during strike in order to maintain essential services.

“There will be no closure,” Legault said, “We’ve done enough for now.”

He said the opposition parties must collaborate in order to pass the legislation. So far, the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Liberal Party have expressed readiness to advance the implementation of Bill 14, which is set to take effect on Nov. 30.

Québec Solidaire is the only party to come out against such a measure.

On Thursday, Labour Minister Jean Boulet said that he was disappointed by TAT’s decision.

“This decision clearly demonstrates the legitimacy of Bill 14,” he said. “In fact, this law aims to give greater consideration to the needs of the population in the event of a strike.”

Boulet said he had confidence in the mediator and was “reasonably optimistic that an agreement will be reached between the union and STM to avoid the weekend strike, which he said would disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, STM director general, Marie-Claude Léonard said she was “bitter” and “very disappointed” by the TAT’s decision to allow bus drivers and metro operators to walk off their jobs this weekend.

She said that the negotiations were ongoing and that there was still a possibility that an agreement is reached to avoid the strike. After some 30 hours of intensive mediation with the drivers’ union, meetings are set to resume in the coming hours.

“We are doing everything we can, but I cannot guarantee that we will succeed,” Léonard said. “It takes two to succeed.”

Léonard said she agreed with Bill 14, under which “essential services will be based on the well-being of the population, rather than on health and safety.”

“We want to reach a solution as quickly as possible,” added Roux Groleau.

The STM invites commuters to plan their trips carefully by consulting the STM website.

Maintenance workers pause strike late Tuesday night

While drivers can go on strike, maintenance workers have been discouraged from doing so.

Service gradually returned to normal on Wednesday after the maintenance workers’ union, which had been on strike since Nov. 1, suspended its strike in anticipation of government intervention.

“We have lost an important lever” with the law that will allow Labour Minister Jean Boulet to end a labour dispute and impose arbitration, or even bring forward the effective date of this law, explained Bruno Jeannotte, president of the union, in an interview on Wednesday.

But “we haven’t exhausted our means of pressure; just because we called off this strike doesn’t mean we’re giving up, on the contrary,” warned Jeannotte.

“I think that if we had rushed headlong into the special law, we would have found ourselves in a situation where we would have been tied down, in the sense that we would not have been able to strike. In fact, our right to strike would have been taken away from us for the duration of the arbitration,” the union leader continued.

And dispute arbitration can take several months, even a year, he points out.

“We couldn’t maintain a strike if there was no movement at the negotiating table,” and, according to him, the employer was hardly budging on the two main issues, namely wages and subcontracting, knowing that Minister Boulet’s intervention was approaching.

However, there has been progress at the negotiating table in recent days, he said.

The 2,400 maintenance workers began a strike on the evening of Oct. 31. It was scheduled to continue until Nov. 28, before being suspended late Tuesday evening, after a dozen days of walkouts, with only essential services provided during rush hour.

As for public transit services, the STM advises that customers will be able to use the network at any time, but that a return to normal service will occur gradually throughout the day. Regular service will not be fully restored until Thursday.

– With files from La Presse Canadienne