Snow removal services are a sticking point as the Essential Services Council holds a hearing with days to go before a Montreal city workers' strike.
The 5,000 blue collar workers staged a general one-day strike in late August, and another half-day strike in October.
But with a new season, they've got a new strategy of prolonged rotating walkouts, beginning in Ville Marie borough on Monday and continuing for the next six weeks.
"We're going to go out for 40 days, but one borough at a time," said union negotiator Marc Ranger. "The strategy is to try to put as much pressure as possible on the city, but not on the citizens."
One of those pressure tactics is to only begin clearing snow once nine centimetres is sitting on the ground.
The city insists that waiting for accumulations that high is dangerous, and on Wednesday city told the Essential Services Council that it wants snow clearing to begin with 2.5 centimetres of accumulation, as is now the case.
"We risk creating a catastrophic situation," said Yves Girard, the city's point man on snow removal.
Some boroughs would be affected more than others in the event of a strike.
Certain neighbourhoods get private contractors to do all of the snow-clearing work while blue collars do the lion's share of the clearing in other districts, such as all of downtown west of University.
The major issue in contract talks has been the city's decision to hire subcontractors to perform some services.
"We're going to continue to lose jobs to the private sectors and the cost, the cost is important," said Ranger. According to the union representative, costs are "30 or 40 per cent higher when you go to the private sector."
The blue collar workers have been without a contract since August 2007.
