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Port of Montreal employers press union strike

Online Niel November 5, 2024

Maritime employers at the Port of Montreal have warned they will suspend wage guarantees for striking union members, in an escalation of a long-running labor dispute.

Saying it had “no other option”, the Maritime Employers’ Association (MEA) said in a statement posted on its website that it would suspend wage guarantees from Tuesday “for all non-working longshore workers” as a means to mitigate “the financial impact of repeated strikes and lower volumes in the Port of Montreal.”

The work stoppage comes as employers at Canada’s West Coast ports union members blocked represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

The strike over schedule by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 375 last Thursday, against two of the port’s four box terminals, halted 40% of container handling in Montreal.

The MEA said it could not change timetables without formal negotiations and said the “shift and relay” timetables questioned by the union were stipulated in the current contract in place and could not be used as a bargaining chip to target a single operator , in this case. Viau and Maisonneuve facilities of Termont Terminals.

The union rejected an MEA proposal for negotiations with a federal mediator. Employers have called on Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon to step in to help restart negotiations.

Employers said container volumes had fallen in the months since CUPE began a series of further strikes, forcing them to “make some cuts across the organisation” and warned more could be to come.

Find more articles by Stuart Chirls Here.

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