The 1,150 dockworkers at the Port of Montreal have refused the latest employer offer and have given themselves a strike mandate, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) announced in a press release Wednesday evening.
The dockers voted 99.63% against the overall employer offer from the Maritime Employers Association and 97.88% in favor of “providing themselves with pressure tactics that could go as far as a strike.” They are represented by a local section of the CUPE, affiliated with the FTQ.
“The parties will be in mediation on Thursday, September 26, to continue their efforts to reach a satisfactory agreement,” the statement said.
The turnout for the vote, which ran from Tuesday 6 p.m. to Wednesday 6 p.m., was 90.33%. Three meetings were scheduled for Tuesday so that all dockworkers could attend, regardless of their shifts.
The Maritime Employers Association’s latest offer was submitted on July 22.
On Tuesday, the CUPE local’s negotiating committee and executive committee recommended that longshoremen reject the offer because they considered it to be little different from the previous one of April 17, 2024, “apart from a few cosmetic changes.”
This other offer had been submitted to the union members, who had rejected it by a vote of 99.54%.
The collective agreement for dockworkers at the Port of Montreal expired on December 31, 2023.
Meanwhile, further south, a major strike threat looms for the 1er October in several ports on the American East Coast, on behalf of the International Longshoremen’s Association.