Hundreds of buses will be sidelined if maintenance workers' strike drags on, STM says

Hundreds of STM buses will be missing from the daily fleet starting next month as a strike on overtime work that began Thursday will have long-lasting effects, the city’s transit agency said.

The Tribunal administratif du travail issued a statement Wednesday approving a month-long strike of all overtime work by maintenance workers. The strike officially began Thursday and will last until Jan. 11. During that time, the STM’s maintenance union will do no overtime work, but the union has agreed to ensure there are enough personnel to respond to extreme weather events.

On Thursday, STM CEO Marie-Claude Léonard said about 15 per cent of the bus fleet’s daily trips will have to be cancelled during the first week of January because she expects immobilized buses will pile up during the strike.

Currently, only 390 of the STM’s fleet of about 1,800 buses are sitting idle, waiting for repairs. That figure is expected to climb to 660 by the beginning of next month, the STM projects. If that happens, the agency will be down 265 buses from the 1,400 it sends out every day to meet its schedules. Léonard said that translates to 1,100 trips that will need to be cancelled, but the STM has vowed to prioritize peak morning and afternoon schedules. The greatest service cuts will be outside those hours, Léonard said.

Meeting reporters at their head offices in Place Bonaventure on Thursday, STM management officials said hundreds of overtime hours are needed just to meet the minimum requirements of the bus fleet. However, they said métro service won’t be affected by the strike because there are enough métro trains to satisfy the basic demands.

STM public affairs director Katherine Roux Groleau said the situation shows how the agency is reliant on inflexible work schedules in order to meet their basic requirements.

“This is why we’re trying to modernize our collective agreement and working conditions, so we don’t rely heavily on overtime,” Roux Groleau said. “We need additional flexibility to have the right person at the right place at the right time.”

Roux Groleau said the two sides remain far apart on the main issues of salaries and subcontracting. She called the maintenance union’s salary demands unrealistic and added that the STM would have to make a 10 per cent cut in its bus service just to meet those demands.

She did not specify the union’s demand on salaries.

Reacting to the comments, maintenance union president Bruno Jeannotte said the STM is employing fear tactics in hopes that the province steps in an forces the parties into binding arbitration, a new power that the labour minister now has under a law known as Bill 89.

“The STM is hoping that the public will be worried about the impact on service,” he said. “The overtime strike should have a very small impact on operations. We will get the maximum number of buses on the road as we can and maybe there won’t be any impact.”

Jeannotte added that if the STM must rely on overtime in order to meet its minimal requirements, it’s because it continues to cut full-time positions in the maintenance department by not hiring replacements for employees who retire.

“We’re working with 200 fewer employees than we had two years ago,” he said.

Both sides continue to meet, but the STM has said it is open to having an arbitrator appointed if the current sessions of negotiations don’t lead anywhere. The union has said it is against arbitration. Both sides must agree before an arbitrator is appointed to impose a settlement.

jmagder@postmedia.com

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