The city came through last week’s three-day blue-collar worker’s strike relatively unscathed, save for a disruption during rush hour on Thursday and a rally outside City Hall on Friday.
The city made sure all essential services were maintained throughout the strike, including road repair and street cleaning, operation of sewers and water mains, and operations related to spring flooding, which was a concern throughout the week for boroughs like Pierrefonds-Roxboro and Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève.
In Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, garbage collection was maintained or postponed until the end of the strike.
Parking restrictions related to street maintenance were also suspended for the duration.
The outside workers, represented by CUPE Local 301, started their strike last Wednesday morning, April 15 at 6 p.m. and ended the same time on Saturday. There were groups of picketers with flags and placards outside all municipal garages on Wednesday, including on St. Jacques Street in the Côte-des-Neiges-NDG borough.
Union president Jean-Pierre Lauzon held a news conference to kick off the strike. The city, he said, remains inflexible on the union’s wage demands.
“We have shown openness and goodwill,” Lauzon said. “The non-monetary clauses are now settled. The only thing still holding us back is the city’s insistence on offering an 11 percent increase over five years. This would directly impoverish outside workers during a cost-of-living crisis.”
The union is asking for 20 percent. The average city worker, it says, earns $55,000 a year.
For its part, the city says it has been working to reach an agreement as quickly as possible for the union’s almost 6,000 workers, an agreement “which respects the financial capacity of the city and of Montreal taxpayers.”
“We’ve been focused on solutions right from the start,” Lauzon said. “But the city’s wage offer is not based on any rigorous comparison, and it does not reflect the economic realities or the outside workers’ essential contribution.”
The city administration said it wants “to find common ground with the union, and calls on the latter to work together and collaborate to find a solution to the renewal of the collective agreement.”
Lauzon says what the union wants is “a negotiated agreement, and we want to keep working for Montreal, but we won’t sign an agreement that would set our members back, especially in such difficult economic times.”
Striking is always a last resort, the union says, when all other avenues have been exhausted. The union was on strike for just one day back in February. The last strike before that was 17 years ago.
Prior to the strike, there had been 35 negotiation sessions, including 15 mediated sessions. “The city has confidence in the mediation process and is fully committed to it,” read a statement released the Monday before the strike.
The outside workers’ contract expired at the end of December 2024.
On Thursday, the union blocked Sherbrooke Street East between Pie-IX and Viau during morning rush hour, disrupting bus service in the area. Workers then marched toward Faubourgs Park at the Jacques Cartier Bridge approach.
Friday morning, the union held a rally outside city hall, leading to a complete closure of Notre-Dame Street. n