Maintenance workers at the STM ended their partial strike on Tuesday night, eleven days after it began, under strong pressure from the CAQ government. Even so, Labour Minister Jean Boulet tabled his bill the very next day to fast-track the implementation of the controversial Bill 14.
The bill would allow the minister to quickly shut down a strike, the main leverage workers have, and limit disruptions that affected Montréal businesses (drops in customers, delays, absences.) A measure that seems to have benefited STM management. “With Bill 14 coming into force ahead of schedule, the STM had no incentive left to negotiate,” said Bruno Jeannotte, president of the STM maintenance workers’ union affiliated with the CSN.
In the end, it was the workers who voted to end the strike before Quebec stepped in, explains Gaétan*, an STM employee interviewed by The North Star. They had to choose between continuing the walkout and risk the government imposing a contract, or stopping it in hopes of negotiating an agreement.
Maintenance workers will not be able to strike again without giving seven days’ notice. The bill will remain on hold because Québec solidaire opposes it, unless the government uses an exceptional legislative procedure to force a vote. Either way, the law is set to take effect on November 30.
Wages and subcontracting at the heart of the conflict
STM maintenance employees have lost between 7% and 10% of their purchasing power since their last collective agreement came into force in 2018. Yet, “the media only talk about our sick days and our salaries,” Gaétan says, visibly frustrated.
“We never talk about the people at the top who vote themselves 30–40% raises, who fatten themselves on public money and hand over our natural resources to lobbyists. Never. It’s always us. As long as the poor fight the poor, the rich get richer.”
According to him, one proposal on the bargaining table would even privatize operations at the Crémazie plant, a facility recently built at a cost of $400 million.
Gaétan believes this push comes from the plant’s bloated and costly bureaucracy. In fact, Montréal’s auditor general reported that “the manufacturing and refurbishment of bus parts and components are not carried out efficiently or economically.” Her 2024 report points to “inventory surpluses, occasional shortages and the absence of a systematic measure of reliability.”
“They added analysts, coordinators… a whole bunch of managers. Today there are plenty of people paid $100,000 a year to do work we used to handle by ourselves.”
He also points to the new IT system installed in recent years by the same company behind the “SAAQclic fiasco.” “In the end, you get constant system glitches and a coordinator planning next week what you should have done yesterday. And then they tell us we’re less efficient. Of course we are.”
The auditor general’s report confirms this: bureaucracy is slowing down maintenance planning and parts production. Managers operate “without clearly defined roles or effective coordination.”
“Take away all that administration. We’ll be able to deliver service to the public. If we’re inefficient today, it’s because too many people tell us what to do without knowing our jobs.”
Breaking out of the box
For Gaétan, the balance of power is stacked. No matter how many press conferences or actions unions hold, “it’ll get ten seconds on TV. They’ll only take the clips they want and twist the reality to make it say what they want people to hear.”
“You’re fighting a system that’s already built to make you look like the culprit.” When a union holds 120 bargaining meetings, nothing moves, and it’s forced to strike, “people get angry,” he says.
He notes that Quebec’s labour history was often built outside the usual frameworks. “In 1974, the STM defied the Bourassa government. Our executive went to jail. And what did it lead to? Indexation of pension funds to inflation, what people in Quebec have today.”
For him, the conclusion is straightforward: “It’s sad to say, but in Quebec, we’ve never won anything by staying within the law. Never.”
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