MONTREAL — Montreal's transit maintenance workers have started a nine-day strike that is causing widespread disruption in the city's network and causing headaches for public transit users.
The 2,400 workers began striking Monday after more than a year of negotiations. For the first three days of the strike, bus and subway service will be limited to morning and afternoon rush hours and late at night.
On social media Monday morning, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante advised people to plan their trips and to walk, bike or use other forms of active transportation, where possible.
But not everyone was prepared for the service interruption. At Montreal's busy Berri-UQAM station, some passengers were caught off-guard when an employee of the transit agency began clearing the station after subway trains stopped running Monday morning.
"Now I have to walk for an hour and I'll be late for work," a visibly irritated woman complained to the employee.
Michael Yao, an accountant on his way to work from Montreal's South Shore, said he'd lost a day of work and would have to find a way back home. "I knew there was a strike, but I thought there was minimal service," he said.
Organizing travel will also be difficult in the coming days for some students. "My classes are in the afternoon, but I have to arrive in the morning because that's the only time there's a metro ... and it'll be like this every day, so it's really inconvenient for me," said Diana, a student at Université du Québec à Montréal, who didn't give her last name.
Regular service will be maintained from Friday to Sunday for the Canadian Grand Prix. But service outside peak hours will be cut in half on the Thursday before and the Monday and Tuesday following the Formula One event.
The head of the maintenance workers union is warning that the strike could escalate if a deal isn't reached.
During a press conference Monday morning, Bruno Jeannotte said further strike days are possible if there is no progress in negotiations following the current nine-day strike. Discussions are scheduled to resume with the transit agency's management on Wednesday.
The union is fighting the use of subcontracting and the creation of atypical schedules on evenings, nights and weekends, among other issues.
Jeannotte also said his team is in talks with the union representing bus and subway drivers, who have also voted for a strike mandate.
Meanwhile, the transit agency says it has met at least 75 times with the union, and says there is still a long way to go in the negotiations.
The agency has complained publicly about what it deemed insufficient public transit funding in this year's provincial budget. It says it's going through a period of "major change" and must refocus on its core mission to provide reliable service to customers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 9, 2025.
Stéphane Blais and Lia Lévesque, The Canadian Press
