Montreal is now five days into a public transit strike. For days, except for during peak hours, the entrances to metro stations have been locked, and no buses have stopped to pick up passengers. 

Both the union and employer are placing the blame on the Quebec government for triggering the conflict, saying years of underfunding has pushed the aging network to the brink.

This year Montreal’s bus and metro network received $400 million less in funding from the province from the previous year, the lowest investment the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) has seen since 2013. Last month, when Quebec tabled its 2025-2026 budget, it found out it would be receiving $258 million in funding over the next three years to run the network, far from the $585 million it had asked for. 

Workers on the picket line say the transit authority is increasingly choosing to subcontract work off to lower paid, non-unionized workers. 

The number of contracts it maintains with private companies continues to grow each year, union leaders say, with subcontractors increasingly taking on jobs they say should be going to their members. 

“We are well aware that at the moment the employer seems to be using us as leverage to put pressure on the government,” said Bruno Jeannotte, the head of the union representing the roughly 2,400 maintenance workers on strike, the Syndicat du transport du Montréal.

Quebec’s funding toward road maintenance greatly exceeds the share for public transit, a service used by more than one million people each day, according to the STM. This year, the government committed $30 billion toward the upkeep of the province’s roads –– 10 times more than what’s been set aside for public transit, a move that advocates call “disappointing and incomprehensible.”

The practice of subcontracting has become a major sticking point at the negotiation table. The STM has been pushing to remove a clause in their collective agreement that bars it from subcontracting out work typically assigned to their workers, the union says.

“Obviously this scares us, because once those clauses are removed, the STM runs the risk of increasing the phenomenon of subcontracting,” Jeannotte said.

The workers will remain on the picket line until next week unless a solution can be found. 

The union hasn’t ruled out the possibility of calling for another strike vote this summer in the instance it can’t reach a deal with its employer, the president warned. Both sides have since agreed to a mediator stepping in. 

The union claims the STM has contravened their members’ collective agreement for years now through the awarding of contracts for work historically done by their workers. The fabrication of parts for buses and metros, transmission repairs, and the inspection and repair of vehicles are among some examples, the union told Ricochet. 

This year, the company Sherwood Electromotion was awarded a contract of over $5.6 million for the repair of electric motors, work the union says could have been done internally. The same company was awarded a similar contract valued at $2.3 million the year prior as well. 

Quebec transport minister Geneviève Guilbault has pitched subcontracting as a means for transit authorities to save money. A Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton audit commissioned by her government last November projected $75 million in potential savings, noting however that collective agreements in effect “prevent the complete or partial outsourcing” of many services.

900 temporary jobs created 

The STM currently helps employ about 900 people through subcontracting out to external companies, according to figures it shared with Ricochet. 

“No external consultants carry out maintenance work, it should be noted,” an STM spokesperson told Ricochet. 

The union disagrees, however. 

Many of the contracts being awarded by the STM pertain to asset management projects, the extension of the metro’s blue line, and professional IT services, said Stéphane Lamont, the head of the union that represents the network’s administrative support staff. 

“Stable, unionized jobs are being cut while contracts with private firms are multiplying,” said Lamont, the president of SCFP 2850, mentioning the recent layoff of about 250 workers, many of them unionized. 

In 2023, the STM signed three-year long contracts with two separate companies following a call for IT services, at a cost totalling more than $42 million. Last year, it spent more than $10 million for two contracts that’ll expire in 2027 for IT services emphaszing cybersecurity, work Lamont says could have been done internally.

“Our members have to train these newcomers, who often have no experience working in the Montreal metro. While we’re losing stable jobs here, private firms are being fattened up,” Lamont said, mentioning more than 20 members –– mostly women in administrative or technical roles –– let go during the recent restructuring. 

The STM told Ricochet it opts for subcontracting when it’s needed to save costs, or when specialized expertise is needed. 

“The STM is aware of the financial burden it places on its government partners, and is committed to generating $100 million in recurrent expenditure reductions over the next five years, without impacting the quality of service offered to customers,” said the spokesperson, Laurence Houde-Roy. 

Perhaps the most flagrant case of privatization will materialize next year, however, when the network’s paratransit drivers are expected to be replaced by new, non-unionized staff. The 128 drivers will be moved into regular bus service. 

“The most vulnerable population won’t have access anymore to the same quality of service,”  said Frédéric Therrien, the president of the union representing the bus drivers. “Private companies, they’re there to make money. Us, we’re there to offer a service.”

He said disabled passengers that rely on the service take up roughly 10 per cent of all trips each day across the network, with the demand growing year after year. 

Many have since shown up at the STM’s board meetings to demand they change course. Others expressed doubts new drivers will be able to offer the same service as those with decades of expertise.

“I just want to thank all the drivers, who I love very, very much. They do an excellent job, and I hope with all my heart that we can keep them,” said Eva Markowitz, a longtime paratransit user, at an April meeting. “I can’t imagine this going private. Absolutely not.”

Marie-Claude Léonard, the STM’s general director, responded to many by assuring the same quality of service will stay.

“We’re in a difficult financial situation, one without precedent,” she told a union representative at another board meeting in March, when pushed to discuss the coming restructuring.

The network has projected it’ll save over $130 million through outsourcing the paratransit service, she said. Right now, it has to do whatever it can to ensure it can continue meeting the needs of Montrealers, she stressed then.

“The issue is that we don’t have enough money right now to even maintain our existing metro infrastructure, to continue our mission and deliver our services reliably and safely,”  Léonard said.

Other unions ready to strike

There could be more strikes to come at the transit network. In May, workers for the union representing bus drivers and the one representing support staff also voted in favour of a possible strike. 

“Right now, we don’t feel like the STM is listening to us,” said Émilie, one of the workers on strike right now. “We just don’t want to see any backtracking from what’s in our current agreement.”

The STM wants to introduce work schedules lasting 10 consecutive days for their maintenance workers on night shifts. It’s also proposing they be ready to relocate between garages across the city at a moment’s notice. 

Right now, these kind of relocations usually only happen three to four times a year, with advance notice, said Émillie, a worker in one of their distribution centres. 

“They want the right to be able to do it whenever they want,” she said. 

Workers already have frequent night shifts and schedules that alter from month to month, she said, especially challenging for those with children. What’s being offered right now will only make life harder for them, she said.

“They need to take their employees into consideration.”