Dockworkers in Montreal, Canada, announced their plan to strike starting Thursday, October 31, targeting two major container terminals. This action was part of an ongoing disagreement over their contract. CUPE Local 375 urged the Maritime Employers Association to reach an agreement, stating that the strike would continue indefinitely unless they settled the work schedule issues. However, the union was willing to cancel the strike if an agreement on the work hours was achieved.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 375 had been without a contract throughout 2024 due to disputes over work schedules that stemmed from previous agreements. Union leaders accused Termont, the company running the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals, of deliberately creating work schedules that harmed the workers’ work-life balance. They claimed that Termont had changed the schedules in a punitive manner.
When the Montreal port began on Thursday morning, it affected the two terminals responsible for handling 40% of the port’s container traffic and 15% of the total operations at the Port of Montreal. Termont managed over 500,000 containers each year and had a long-term agreement to handle business for the Mediterranean Shipping Company at the port.
The union stated that it would call off the strike if they could agree on work rules. Union leaders expressed confidence that the wage issues could be easily settled, proposing a 20% wage increase over four years. This proposal matched the terms offered to longshore workers in the ports of Halifax and Vancouver.
This planned strike followed a 24-hour strike on Sunday that halted the Port of Montreal and a refusal to accept any overtime work since October 10. Additionally, the union conducted a three-day strike against Termont last month.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), which represents small and medium-sized businesses in Canada, strongly criticized the union on Sunday. They urged the federal government to intervene and had previously offered to provide a special mediator. However, the government did not support this offer and had not yet taken further steps to resolve the conflict.
Jasmin Guenette, Vice-President of National Affairs at CFIB, stated, “The only reason the longshoremen are striking is because they can. They have no remorse for the economic harm and uncertainty their actions are causing.
Canada’s SMEs are once again the collateral damage of the union’s irresponsible actions.” She argued that “labor laws favor large unions too much. The federal government needs to declare ports as essential services to ensure they remain operational. This would protect our supply chain and SMEs and prevent labor actions like the current situation at the Port of Montreal.”
Last year, similar frustration arose when the West Coast ports in Canada were disrupted by a contract dispute with the longshoremen’s union.
The federal government intervened to help resolve that conflict and promised to investigate the matter.
The recent dispute on the West Coast involved the contracts of 700 foremen and had been contentious, with the Canada Industrial Relations Board recently ruling that the union had sealed a negotiation in bad faith.
As the strike authorization on the West Coast was set to expire on November 2, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 and the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association agreed with federal mediators to restart contract talks starting on October 29. Previous attempts by the union to strike at DP World’s facilities were blocked by labor regulators.