Activities resumed as planned at the affected terminals at the Port of Montreal at 7 a.m. Thursday, following the three-day partial strike by the longshoremen’s union. The Port estimates that it will take approximately six days per strike day to make up for lost time.
Some 320 of the 1,200 members of the affected local section of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), affiliated with the FTQ, walked off the job from Monday 7 a.m. to Thursday 6:59 a.m. The strike only affected the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals of the Termont company.
No date for the resumption of mediation is yet planned; the dispute therefore remains unresolved.
The union says in a press release that a meeting was planned with the Federal Mediation Service on Thursday at 10 a.m., but that it was canceled because the employers’ association was not available to participate. He therefore says he doubts the real eagerness of the Maritime Employers’ Association to want to renew the collective agreement.
For its part, the Association of Maritime Employers affirms that there has been no summons from the Mediation Service since September 26 and that “no other summons has been sent” since.
The Montreal Port Authority, for its part, estimates that it will take some time to recover from the delay caused by the three days of partial walkout at the two terminals. “We are talking about up to six days a day of strike to resume normality,” it was clarified on Thursday.
“In just three days, the impacts on our docks amount to more than 1,300 containers grounded, including food and medical products, more than 11,500 containers delayed, supply chain congestion, delivery delays and additional costs for businesses and consumers,” the Port Authority said.
“We continue to hope more than ever that the two parties reach a lasting agreement as quickly as possible, which would ensure in the long term the reliability and fluidity of a supply chain so essential to the economy and to society,” the Port Authority said.
Essential service?
Furthermore, the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal expressed its exasperation at seeing the supply chain temporarily interrupted by the three-day partial strike. She is directly asking that it be declared an essential service in the event of a labor conflict.
Generally speaking, essential services are those whose interruption could have the effect of endangering the health or safety of the public.
“It is unacceptable to periodically put our economy on pause in order to have influence in a negotiation. These repeated strikes are damaging our reputation as a logistics hub. We have been calling for many years for the government to recognize supply chains for what they are, essential services to our economy. It is time to decide in this direction to protect the economy and society as a whole,” said its president and CEO, Michel Leblanc.