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Federal officials have been brought in to help prevent a third labour stoppage at the Port of Montreal in four years.
Dock workers at Canada’s second busiest port have been without a labour deal since their pact expired Dec. 31. About 1,290 longshore workers and 165 checkers currently work for the Maritime Employers Association in Montreal.
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Union and management officials have held several mediation meetings — including some this month — in a bid to reach a new collective agreement, Anabel Martin Kaigle, a spokesperson for the MEA, said Wednesday via email. Experts from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service are taking part in the discussions, she added.
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Pressure tactics — such as a strike or lockout — cannot take place until the Canada Industrial Relations Board has ruled on a demand the MEA made in October for all longshoring activities at the port to be deemed essential. The Ottawa-based board — which rejected a similar application by the MEA in 2020 — has requested more information from the parties by mid-February, Martin Kaigle said.
“Our priority remains the signing of a negotiated collective agreement,” she said.
Operations at the port were hit twice by labour disputes in the span of less than a year — most recently in the spring of 2021 — during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering major supply chain disruptions across the country. The second conflict prompted the federal government to impose back-to-work legislation, sowing widespread discontent among union ranks.
Montreal is Eastern Canada’s main trading hub, serving about 75 per cent of the country’s manufacturing capacity and almost two-thirds of the Canadian population.
This makes the current labour negotiations “crucial,” Julien Baudry, a spokesperson for the Montreal Port Authority, said Wednesday via email.
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“We hope that the process will enable both parties to reach a lasting agreement that will provide a predictable business environment for the thousands of companies that use the Port of Montreal,” he added.
Officials at Local 375 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees aren’t prepared to discuss the matter for now, Lisa Djevahirdjian, a CUPE spokesperson in Montreal, said Wednesday. A message on Local 375’s website says the next union meeting is scheduled for Feb. 21.
Preliminary figures released this month indicate that volumes at the Port of Montreal fell two per cent in 2023, reflecting a global economic slowdown. The decline was particularly pronounced for container volumes, which dropped 8.8 per cent amid a dip in consumer demand for imports.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week he’s concerned about the long-term consequences of a possible strike at the Port of Montreal and is hoping for a negotiated settlement.
“The uncertainty, the disruption to supply chains” don’t just cause problems during strikes, Trudeau said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with Michel Leblanc, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. After port activities resume, some customers who found alternative transportation never return to ports, the prime minister noted.
Port strikes are a “perpetual, recurring crisis,” Leblanc told Trudeau. “As we speak, everybody here thinks we’ll have a strike at the Port of Montreal within weeks. We have seen this coming for months.”
Last summer, a strike by Vancouver port workers stalled billions of dollars’ worth of cargo for 13 days.
Andy Riga of the Montreal Gazette contributed to this report.
ftomesco@postmedia.com
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