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public transport agency workers are denouncing an audit by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (RCGT) as political manoeuvring. Commissioned by Quebec's Minister of Transportation, the report published at the beginning of November recommends massive outsourcing to save millions, a vision that the unions consider dangerous for public services.
The firm attacked the salaries of bus drivers at the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), suggesting that they be cut. However, the solutions put forward by RCGT would worsen the problems of labour shortages and service breakdowns in public transport companies, according to the network's workers.
First off, the idea that subcontracting will lead to savings is rejected by the STM's office and professional employees union (SEBP610). In their offices, STM engineers have long rubbed shoulders with engineers hired by subcontracting firms. The latter are paid at twice the hourly rate of STM engineers.
According to Benoit Tessier, vice-president of SEBP610, subcontracting also means that the public company has less control over its services. “There is less control over how your service is carried out, because your only leverage is a contractual relationship with a private carrier. The public loses control over the quality of the service provided.”
In school transport, services are provided entirely by subcontractors. They are accumulating thousands of service breakdowns per year, 197 per day in 2022-2023 and 137 in 2023-2024. Despite a stern report by the Auditor General of Quebec in 2011, the subcontractors are stubbornly refusing to change their practices and the government is increasing their contracts.
Attracting and keeping employees is also likely to be affected by the use of subcontractors in public transport. “For example, transport operators under contract with Exxo have difficulty hiring and keeping their staff, because their working conditions are inferior. So, if we want to give them more contracts, this problem of having a competent workforce is going to get worse,” Tessier says.
It's the same story in the school transport sector, where strikes have multiplied over the past year to demand adequate pay and working conditions. Despite government increases of up to 48% on subcontracts, drivers have had to fight hard to obtain substantial pay rises. This situation has created major labour retention problems in the industry.
In Tessier's view, the RCGT report means that the Minister of Transportation is interfering in the ongoing negotiations between the STM and its employees. “The government is giving the STM a bit of a warning, saying: ‘I've given you some solutions, privatize, reduce working conditions, and then come and ask me for money. But if you give good agreements, if you don't do what's in the report, you're going to find it harder to come and beg me for money afterwards!'”
“We know that a first version of the report was submitted to the government in August. The feedback we've had is that the Minister's office wasn't really happy with the conclusions of the report and asked for a new version. They tried to find money wasting. They didn't find any. And now, since they had to find ways to save money, they're proposing to subcontract.”
Following the release of the report, the STM also unveiled its budget for the coming year, which it boasts is “balanced”. For Tessier, the idea of avoiding deficits at all costs is misplaced:
“That's not how a public service works. A public transport network, like any other public service, is not profitable. It doesn't pay for itself. The fare that people pay is not going to be enough to pay for 100% of the service. Otherwise, the fares would be so high that people wouldn't use the service.”
In his opinion, under the guise of budgetary strictness, the STM's real budget is being cut. “There has been no improvement to services. There's no growth compared with last year. There is a certain ongoing compression. As a result, budget growth is below 1%. When inflation is taken into account, this means that there is a decrease in expenditure for 2025.”
For the vice-president of SEBP610, transport company workers are not just looking for a bigger piece of the pie, but also for a broadening of the service on offer and an improvement of its quality.
“We, the unions of the STM and other transport companies, as active members of civil society, are taking a stand and organizing ourselves with other players to demand better funding for transport companies [...] In June, the FTQ organized a national forum on the funding of public and collective transport. [...] In June, the FTQ organized a national forum on the financing of public transport. Unions and civil society organizations also took part.”