As many as 5,000 municipal workers are off the job Monday, using the one-day strike to impose pressure on the city to come to a contract agreement.
The blue-collar workers have been without a contract since August 2007.
The municipal employees are asking for a 3 per cent pay hike, retroactive to 2007 indefinitely. The City of Montreal says it can't afford the increase, and is offering no increase for 2007, and then an increase every year until 2010.
"That would cost us more than $100 million, if we said yes to that," said Claude Dauphin, chairman of the city's executive committee.
A skeleton crew of 95 workers will maintain essential services throughout the day, including emergency road repair, water filtration systems and garbage collection.
Employees will return to work, and resume their normal duties, at the stroke of midnight on Monday night.
Recycling is cancelled Monday in the following boroughs:
- Ahunstic-Cartierville
- Plateau-Mont-Royal
- Sud-Ouest
- Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension: Workers will collect recyclables Tuesday.
Household garbage collection is disrupted Monday and will resume Wednesday in the following sectors:
- C�te-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Gr�ce: C�te-Saint-Luc Rd. to the north, Grand Blvd. to the east, Saint-Jacques Rd. to the south and Connaught Ave. to the west;
- Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie: In Sector 1, east of 31st Ave. north of Rosemont Blvd. In Sector 2, from Papineau Blvd. to Iberville St.
Household garbage collection is cancelled Monday in the following sectors:
- Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: In the section between Ontario, Viau and Sherbrooke Sts., and the western limit of the borough.
- Rivi�re-des-Praires-Pointe-aux-Trembles: from Rivi�re des Prairies to Maurice-Duplessis Blvd., and between Armand-Bombardier and Saint-Jean-Baptiste Blvds.
For more information, call 311 or visit www.ville.montreal.qc.ca
