I was feeling great riding my bicycle 20km to get some hobbying done but damn the snow is messy as F and now with the time shift it's dark night by 5pm and with the cold, bicycling is freaking oppressive.
Has the STM strike affected your SP business or hobbying plans?
- Thread starter Mandouke
- Start date
Yeah but you have all these great bicycle lanes thanks to our former mayor.
Time to put winter chains on those bicycle tires.
When I was a young boy, these guys were on strike numerous times. It is chaos on so many levels. I mentioned to two nurses on the weekend that STM bus drivers already make $120,000 per year with overtime and benefits, and they were shocked that they did not make that salary. That says a great deal about the strength of the union and the political clout it wields.
Where I am from there's an old joke that says that the person on board the bus with the highest salary is always the driver...
STM maintenance workers halt strike, service to resume Wednesday
The union representing maintenance workers at the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) announced it is suspending strike actions starting Wednesday.
www.ctvnews.ca
^^^^ The maintenance workers union halt their strike. As of Wed at 6am the service will be back to normal. The strike of the drivers and operators is still in progress for this weekend. This was expected as the government planned to force them back to work tomorrow and accept whatever offer the STM proposed to them. The union did what was best for them. They do not care about the passengers or how it affected them. Good job CAQ. This should be a warning to unions to stop being so greedy and taking the public hostage. Be happy you got great working conditions and are well paid. Be humble.
Hard disagree. Strike all the things all the time (within reason). Unions lift up working conditions/wages/safety standards, reduce corporate power over employees, force more money down to the working class, and are almost single-handedly responsible for just about every good thing we consider to be a part of the nominal working week.
Never be happy with what you're given freely by employers.
Did you bother to read what they are already getting? Look at Canada Post. I posted all the things in a separate thread already. The union is disconnected from reality. The money is not there and the STM is not a corporation in the sense you say it is. It is a public transportation. They are well payed. The point is to appreciate what you already have. They can spend a week working at McDonalds to see how it is. What about students and low wage workers? Do you not understand how it affects them? They are not people making the big bucks, neither do they have a car. They got to take a Taxi each time and it gets very costly. I understand the need to strike but in some cases the right cannot be there because it is an essential service. Can nurses go on strike? Can the police go on strike? How can public transportation workers go on strike? Put yourself in the shoes of a student. The final exams are approaching and now you got to pay hundreds of dollars in a taxi to get to and home from class. You talk about corporate powers, what about reducing union powers affecting the less wealthy people who got no choice to pay a taxi to hang on to their jobs? They also got bills to pay.
I hate that this is how I feel about it. But part of the money problem is less reliance on their system already.
They introduced the bike lanes and bike sharing. Yes I agree it is great for the ability to exercise and better for the environment, great for the public. But the downside is less people paying to use the public transportation. And there is less money going into it.
Drivers who dont even use the public transportation system in Montreal, had their registrations increased to cover a public service they don't use, because people who would have been paying into use it, have gravitated away to the bike share system, or personalized electric modes of transportation. Not sure where the employees thought they were going to get more money from when tapping into a dry well. The price went up dramatically from 75$ last year, to 180$ back in December or January.
I am glad they are there for those who need them. But by shutting down the system like this will only encourage less reliability to the STM service and teach people to find other means in the future, because they have shown to be unreliable. When's the next discussions going to be? Will they strike again? Especially if they didn't get what they wanted in the end this time. Who wants to give up the autonomy of driving themselves around, like the city is trying to push, when the alternative means relying on a system that can choose to just stop being available.
Electric personal transportation like bikes, scooters, and the like make it easier to get around without even needing a license to drive any more. Good for the public, bad for public transportation who relies on people using it's services to pay for itself.
They introduced the bike lanes and bike sharing. Yes I agree it is great for the ability to exercise and better for the environment, great for the public. But the downside is less people paying to use the public transportation. And there is less money going into it.
Drivers who dont even use the public transportation system in Montreal, had their registrations increased to cover a public service they don't use, because people who would have been paying into use it, have gravitated away to the bike share system, or personalized electric modes of transportation. Not sure where the employees thought they were going to get more money from when tapping into a dry well. The price went up dramatically from 75$ last year, to 180$ back in December or January.
I am glad they are there for those who need them. But by shutting down the system like this will only encourage less reliability to the STM service and teach people to find other means in the future, because they have shown to be unreliable. When's the next discussions going to be? Will they strike again? Especially if they didn't get what they wanted in the end this time. Who wants to give up the autonomy of driving themselves around, like the city is trying to push, when the alternative means relying on a system that can choose to just stop being available.
Electric personal transportation like bikes, scooters, and the like make it easier to get around without even needing a license to drive any more. Good for the public, bad for public transportation who relies on people using it's services to pay for itself.
Yes, and a refund or rebate should be offered to those who bought monthly passes and did not receive full service.
STM needs to start paying us cardholders, now! Enough of the highway robbery.
The drivers will still strike this weekend.
I doubt it, first of all, they have seen the public opinions swing drasticaly in the past weeks. No union is stupid enough to ignore the opinions expressed by the population who, in the end, is paying for their salaries and huge working contract. It is the main leverage of the government to justify voting the harshest special bill on them and forcing the terms for the next 4-5 years. Which, as we’ve seen, they are trying to avoid at all cost.
The bus drivers' union is distinct from the maintenance workers' union. The back-to-work legislation from the CAQ government only covers the maintenance workers and not the bus drivers. They are scheduled to strike this weekend, and the service disruption is for the entire day and weekend, with no rush hour service, as was the case with the maintenance workers.
With overtime, a nurse can do it $$$ also.
They can quit to switch as a bus driver if they want... Just saying.
I'm not conflicted here... Just admit that hours are long.
The typical schedule for a bus driver in Montreal is around 40 hours per week, with shifts that can start early in the morning and end late at night, spread across different routes and time slots. Drivers may have split shifts where they work part of the morning, have a long break of several hours, and then resume work in the afternoon and evening.
The base salary for a bus driver in Montreal, particularly with the STM, starts at $28.95 per hour for new employees and increases progressively to $35.64 after 36 months of service. For a 40-hour work week, this corresponds to an annual base salary of approximately $60,216.
It is the nature of the operations. It is a 24hr environment and split shifts are to optimize operations, morning rush and afternoon rush will need a lot more drivers so yes they do split shifts. But with a lot of these unionized positions, scheduling is based on seniority. So a new guy will get the worst shifts and will almost always do split shifts, a guy working for 20 years will get much better schedules and not do any split shifts. But they all know this when applying for the job.
The root problem is both provincial and municipal governments refusing to increase funding when it is needed. Population has increased significantly which means more service is needed. The STM has been years for some years that they got a budget shortfall. I take the metro daily and I see the constant overcrowding. Way more service is needed. Plante significantly increased vehicle registration fees to fund public transportation, where did the money go? Why is not more funding being provided?
This is coming to almost kind of the same situation with Canada Post. To give the union what they want, the STM would need millions of dollar more in funding just to provide the wages they want which does not even fulfill the increased needed to serve the much more increased population.
The root of their demands and it is not just about pay. They no longer want the STM to subcontract some of their work. They also want their jobs guaranteed so in other words to never be layed off even if the need to cut the workforce is needed. So if the STM wants to cut some employees to save money, they cannot or maybe many tasks got automated now they cannot layoff those employees. But come on this is a dreamland? How can anyone have guaranteed jobs. Positions are based on needs and if the STM is subcontracting work out it is given to the lowest bidder and is done to save costs.
The driver strike for the weekend is confirmed, this Sat and Sun there will be zero service? How will this effect hobbying this weekend with zero service?
I will be doing nothing except saving my hobby money and watching the Grey Cup on Sunday.
