On September 15, 2022, the Société des arrimeurs de Québec, a three-headed entity composed of the companies QSL, G3 Canada and Logistec, launched a lockout that is about to enter its third year. On Sunday, the dozens of dockworkers at the Port of Québec affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees will once again form their picket line at the entrance to the port facilities, a routine they have been repeating from dawn to midnight for almost 730 days.
One chilly September morning, the men stand sentry around their makeshift hut, ready to exert one of the only means of pressure they have left: stopping, for five minutes, the trucks trying to enter the port. Every day, the “replacement workers”, according to the euphemism, parade before them, come to do a job that was still theirs two years ago.
“It should be called: ‘How far to push madness’,” Dominique Arsenault, one of the locked-out dockworkers, shouts indignantly. “It’s inhumane, what they’re making us live through. What have we done to deserve this?”
After two years of conflict, these men have only one dream: to find work again, to descend once again into the bowels of the ships and to hear again the echo of their machinery loading and unloading the merchandise in the depths of the holds.
“You feel very small in the belly of a boat,” says Stéphan Arsenault, president of the Quebec longshoremen’s union. “When you’re in it, it’s immense, it’s an incredible experience. It’s really something you don’t experience anywhere else. For me,” adds the man with piercing blue eyes, “it’s the most beautiful job to the world.
The Port of Quebec is a bit of a family affair for the Arsenaults. The grandfather, the father, and now Stéphan, the son, have all worked unloading the bulk cargo that has docked, over three generations, at the capital’s docks. The last of the line began the work in 1984. If nothing changes between now and September 27, it will be on a picket line, and not alongside the ships that have brought him his bread and butter since he was 16, that he will celebrate his 40e year of work.
A family challenge
The crux of the conflict, according to the union, is the alignment of better family conciliation with schedules that fluctuate depending on the arrival of the boats. “Every day, you have to call at 4 p.m. to take your orders,” explains the union representative. “At that time, you have your directives for the next 24 hours. So we are always waiting, we never have a schedule.”
The reproaches of “absent father” and “unknown father” are what these men say they have heard throughout their careers. “Someone who works Monday to Friday definitely has two days off per week,” adds colleague Sylvain Michaud. “That’s roughly 100 days of guaranteed vacation per year. We don’t have any weekends. We have the right to ask for them, without having any guarantee of getting them.”
The conflict resonated as far as Ottawa and led, last spring, to the first anti-scab law applicable to federally regulated companies. The measure, which has existed in Quebec since 1977, did not constrain federal entities. The new legislation will change that in June 2025.
A heavy price
Despite this victory, which brought the dockers pride and, above all, the feeling of being listened to, the conflict nevertheless crushed a few lives in two years. The price these men paid was often counted in depression, sometimes in divorce. Some lost their homes, and all of these blue-collar workers accustomed to working with the strength of their arms and the sweat of their brows sacrificed a little of their dignity.
“See some scabs “To pass by every day without being able to do anything, you can’t even imagine the harm it does,” confides Stéphan Arsenault. “Imagine that your partner, with whom you have been happy for 40 years, as in my case, suddenly throws you out and that, every day, you watch suitors who come into your house, who put on your pajama jacket, who pet your dog, who use your tools, who are happy with your things while you, you sleep outside in your car. And it starts again the next day, on Groundhog Day, all the time for two years.”
After numerous negotiations, the hiring of a conciliator and the rejection of a proposed agreement by union members last December, trust appears tenuous between the two parties – but the hope of reaching an agreement remains on both sides.
“We still believe that we will be able to find a solution at the negotiating table,” wrote the Duty Guy Lamontagne, Director of Human Resources at the Société des arrimeurs de Québec. We proposed some very interesting avenues in our last offer, last June, on which we are still waiting for a response from the union party.
He stresses that “an extremely generous enhanced offer” is on the table and that, over the past two years, the two parties have held “at least 75 meetings with […] the mediator, including two in May, two in June, one in September and two more to come in the coming days.”
The dockers say they are ready to return to work “tomorrow morning” if a good agreement is reached – but equally ready to maintain their watch as long as necessary, helped by a few pancakes, a little coffee and a lot of solidarity.