STM maintenance workers begin strike, disrupting commutes across Montreal

Transit users are adjusting their commutes Monday as maintenance workers with Montreal's transit authority launch a week-long strike. 

On Monday morning, bus and Metro cars began running around 6:30 a.m., about an hour later than usual, stranding many overnight workers on their way home and those who start early. 

Ugox Saint works a split shift as a security guard and finished a six-hour stretch at around 3 a.m. on Monday. At 6 a.m., he was still at the Lionel-Groulx Metro station.

"I have to come back to work again today. How can I survive ... with no sleep?" he said. "And, if I don't work, how will I pay my rent?"

The strike is expected to last until June 17, but service hours will vary according to the day.

The first three days of this week, June 9 to 11, will be the most challenging for commuters as bus and Metro cars will only run during specific rush-hour and late-night windows.

Those windows are from 6:30 a.m. to 9:38 a.m., from 2:45 p.m. to 5:48 p.m., and from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Transit users will get a reprieve from Friday June 13 to Sunday June 15, with buses and Metros following the regular schedule due to the Canadian Grand Prix. 

You can find a detailed breakdown of the service hours during the strike and the reasons for it here. 

Outsourcing, work schedules among sticking points

On Monday morning, Marie-Claude Léonard, the executive director of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), reiterated the need for commuters to plan their trips and expect delays as well as crowding in transit.

She also stressed that bus and Metro car drivers need to have completed their service runs by the end of the more limited schedules.

That means, for example, that you shouldn't expect a bus or Metro to begin a service run at 9:38 a.m., 5:48 p.m. or 1 a.m. and to get to your stop a few minutes later.

The 2,400 maintenance workers involved in the strike are with the Syndicat du transport de Montréal, a union affiliated with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) labour federation. The union held a news conference Monday morning.

Union representatives said the strike is not about forcing the STM to cave in to their demands, but rather about getting the public transit agency to back off. The union says the STM has a list of 130 demands, several of which they deem unacceptable. 

Bruno Jeannotte, the president of the Syndicat du transport de Montréal, said the STM wants to remove what he described as "outsourcing protections" to allow the public transit agency to outsource more work that should be done by unionized employees.

Jeannotte also said the STM wants to get rid of 12-hour work days. Those 12-hour days allow some employees, specifically night-shift workers, to rack up their weekly hours over three days instead of five and have a better work-life balance.

He said the STM's demands would make work in this sector less appealing than in other ones like construction.

"If construction is more competitive [when it comes to work-life balance], it's obvious that people will have a tendency to not come work at the STM and that's an issue for the reliability of public transit in the mid term and long term," Jeannotte said.

Jeannotte also said the STM has not approached the union about holding talks. The last meeting between both sides, according to him, was held last Wednesday.

The union leader said the pressure tactics serve as a message to the Quebec government to provide more funding for public transit.