Working nights “is a lifestyle that requires adaptation,” said Ève Ouimet, as she picketed Tuesday with fellow STM maintenance workers. “Some aren’t capable. Physically and mentally, it’s very difficult.”

“We make sacrifices,” to keep buses and métros running, said Ouimet, who has worked night shifts at Montreal’s public transit agency for 18 years. In the months when daylight hours are shortest, night workers spend much of that time asleep.

“We can go three months without really seeing the sun,” she said.

Now striking for the third time this year, the STM’s 2,400 maintenance workers are in the first week of a grueling 28-day walkout set to run through most of November. While users face heavily scaled-back transit, the workers’ union says it’s been met with a rigid employer at the barga

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