A major professional union is calling on the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) to reduce the number of hundreds of consultants who work in its offices every day before eliminating positions as it did last month. An operation which risks being repeated, while the public transport deficit remains yawning.
At least 400 “external resources” work at the STM, some for more than a decade continuously, according to the SEPB, which represents public transport professionals. A consultant has also worked at the STM for 23 years, surpassing most employees in seniority, says the union.
” There are many. We are capable of doing the job and there are people who have a career without being an STM employee, while they are cutting positions,” said the president of the SEPB, Marc Glogowski, in an interview with The Press. “This is what we want to denounce. »
These professionals have an STM email address, sometimes occupy management positions and are invited to party local Christmas. Rather than having an employment relationship with the STM, their hours are rented to an architectural or engineering consulting firm, which makes a profit on their services.
Mr. Glogowski says he understands that an organization like the STM employs specialized consultants for specific, time-limited needs. But these consultants now represent the majority of the workforce working on the extension of the blue line and between 30% and 40% (depending on the version) of that working on maintaining assets, often without particular specialization.
“The right people in the right places”
The STM argues that it aims for “a balance” between external resources and internal employees within its project offices.
“The use of external consultants proves necessary, in particular to modulate our resource needs according to the variation of our investment plans, according to the progress of the projects, or even, for example, when very specialized expertise is required, but not necessary for the STM in the long term,” indicated spokesperson Anne-Julie Maltais. “This is a common practice in our sector which allows greater flexibility (in terms of expertise, duration, etc.). »
Overall objective: “dedicate the right people to the right places”.
Last month, the STM announced the abolition of 230 positions. Among professionals, half of the positions eliminated were already vacant.
The organization also claims that it has recently transformed consultant positions into internal positions: “around 19 in 2023, 4 in 2024”.
Last November, the STM signed a new contract with the firms Stantec, SNC-Lavalin and EXP to provide it with the equivalent of 214,000 hours of work by engineers over the next four years, following a call of offers. The STM expects to have to spend 41 million.