ADVERTISEMENT

Business

Montreal Port Urges Trudeau Government to End Strike

Workers picket outside the Termont Terminal Inc. Maisonneuve terminal during a dockworkers' strike in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. Two terminals at the Port of Montreal closed Monday as 320 longshoremen began a 72-hour strike, the Montreal Gazette reports. (Graham Hughes/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The Montreal Port Authority is calling on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to intervene to end a weeklong strike that is disrupting operations in the country’s second-largest port.

Two terminals operated by Termont Montreal Inc. that account for about 40% of the port’s container handling capacity have been closed since Oct. 31 after unionized dockworkers walked off the job. It is the third labor action at the port in a month. The port authority said it considers all container handling operations at international terminals to be at a standstill.

“It’s obvious that there are no negotiations, and that the government needs to act by offering both sides a path to reach a genuine industrial peace,” Julie Gascon, Montreal Port’s chief executive officer, said in a Thursday statement.

The 1,200 dockworkers, represented by the Port of Montreal Longshoremen’s Union, have been without a collective agreement since Dec. 31. Talks with the Maritime Employers Association, the group representing companies operating the terminals, are at an impasse over wages and work-life balance.

Montreal Port handles about C$400 million ($288 million) worth of goods every day, generating C$268 million in economic activity, according to the authority.

The labor dispute comes as western Canadian ports locked out dock workers Monday, disrupting an estimated C$800 million in activity per day, according to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

Canadian labor minister Steven MacKinnon said he’s “closely monitoring” negotiations at both ports, in a Thursday post on X, though he didn’t indicate any government action.

“Both sets of talks are progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved,” he said, adding that the federal government supports these negotiations. “The parties must reach an agreement quickly.”

(Updates with labor minister’s comments in last two paragraphs.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.