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Interview Maintenance Workers at
Montreal Transit Corporation
Demand a Negotiated Contract Which Is
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Workers' Forum: How many workers are involved in current negotiations and what work do they do at the Montreal Transit Corporation (STM)?
Gleason Frenette: The union represents about 2,400 members. The majority, about three-quarters, are tradespeople, electricians, plumbers, masons, tinsmiths, etc., and about 550 maintenance workers. The collective agreement expired last January 2018; we started negotiations eight months before the end of the agreement. We've now been negotiating for 22 months.
WF: What are the main features of this negotiation?
GF: The STM came to us with more than a hundred rollbacks in its offer. Those were demands for major changes in several aspects of the collective agreement including working hours. It is not customary to ask for so many changes in the negotiations. Normally the employer tries to change some aspects of the agreement by giving something else in exchange.
They came with all these requests, probably thinking that with Bill 24, in the event that we cannot reach an agreement, the government would decree our working conditions.[1] They asked that our working hours be based on twelve-hour shifts, instead of eight hours as is the case at present. They want more employees to work on weekends and on evening and night shifts. They call this operational flexibility. They pushed us into a situation where if we manage to make some gains and undo the majority of their requests for setbacks the members will be satisfied. Our main demand is to maintain what we already have.
We also have a demand with respect to the pension plan. We are asking for compensation in connection with Bill 15, which forces us to contribute three per cent more to the pension plan.[2] Under Bill 15, our members have to contribute three per cent more to the plan and the employer three per cent less. We had to divide the pension plan into two components, a component before Bill 15 and one after, as the new law requires the parties to contribute 50-50 in the pension plan.
Before the law was passed, we were contributing six per cent of our payroll to our pension plan and the employer was doubling it. We called it a 12-6 contribution. We had negotiated all that. It was stipulated in our contract. We had made concessions in the past to receive this 12-6 ratio; we had accepted zero per cent wage increases to keep that rate in our pension plan. With Bill 15, the government made it possible to undo this aspect of the collective agreement. We are now asking for wage compensation for the increase in our dues.
WF: Can you explain how Bill 24 affects your negotiations?
GF: Bill 24 provides that under certain conditions, if we cannot reach an agreement, the government could ultimately decree our working conditions. We have been in mediation since September 2018. We had two extensions of 60 days of mediation, as the law provides. The second extension period ended on January 12. If the mediator wants to extend the mediation again, according to the law, the employer and the union must agree. At the moment, the employer is tolerating the presence of the mediator. If he wishes, he may request the appointment of a special mandatary, which would be the next step. Negotiations would continue during that time, but the special mandatary would prepare his report for the government, and the government could decree the collective agreement according to the advice of the mandatary.
WF: Where are the negotiations at the moment?
GF: On the issue of flexibility, we have accepted many of their schedule changes but not all of their demands. On the other hand, we are asking for a wage increase to obtain the wage catch-up for tradespeople, something we have been demanding for many years. The wages of many of our trades are lagging behind those in the private sector and comparable sectors. We want an overall wage increase that allows us at least to maintain our purchasing power.
In addition, we are awaiting, as I speak to you, a decision of the Administrative Labour Tribunal. The employer accuses us of taking illegal job actions that disrupt service to the public, for example by reducing the availability of buses on the road. We reject this accusation; we have not engaged in any illegal job actions. We are saying that it is bad management decisions that have damaged the service. They made a lot of bad decisions with respect to bus maintenance. The employer is the only one to blame for the inadequate services to the public.
This situation of bargaining has been going on for two years now. Meanwhile, our daily life continues; we do not just have to deal with bargaining; we have members who are being fired; we have members who have workplace accidents and have to go on salary insurance.
Dismissals are on the rise, and these are largely
punitive dismissals, that are intended to scare us. They attack
those
who stand up to them on anything. They actually fired one worker
and
suspended another worker for six months for confronting a STM
director
who physically attacked one of our workers. These two workers
never
touched the director.
The workers are also very angry about the comments to the media by the STM's general director, who accuses the workers of sabotage and illegal job actions. They are tired of hearing the director general discrediting our workers and accusing them of all sorts of things, such as intimidating managers and even causing fuel shortages on buses. For a director general to make public comments to denigrate the workers is something that has never been seen in the history of the STM.
Notes
1. Bill 24, An Act respecting the process of negotiation of collective agreements and the settlement of disputes in the municipal sector, was adopted by the Quebec National Assembly on November 2, 2016.
2. Bill 15, An Act to foster the financial health and sustainability of municipal defined benefit pension plans, was adopted by the National Assembly on December 4, 2014. In September 2018, ten unions began a legal challenge in the Superior Court, to have it declared unconstitutional. According to the unions, this legislation contravenes the freedom to bargain collectively, which is part of the freedom of association protected by section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This article was published in
Number 6 - February 21, 2019
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca