At 7 o'clock this morning, workers at the Port of Montreal, Canada officially started an indefinite strike.
The Maritime Employers’ Association has previously received a strike notice from the union representing the dockworkers. Starting at 7 am on April 26, 1,150 port workers belonging to the Canadian Public Employees’ Union will start an indefinite strike. The docker's work contract originally expired in December 2018, but because there was no new labor agreement with the docker, the last contract was automatically extended. After a 12-day strike in August 2020, the dockworkers and the Maritime Employers Association (MEA) reached a 7-month cessation of the strike agreement, which ended on March 20. After the agreement ended, negotiations resumed in early April, but the relationship between the two parties gradually deteriorated.
On April 10, due to the uncertainty of labor conditions, the volume of cargo handled at the Port of Montreal fell by 11% in March. MEA notified workers that it intends to cancel the income guarantee for union members. The union responded later in the day, notifying union members 72 hours in advance that they will stop working overtime and weekend work.
The Port of Montreal handles 275 million Canadian dollars worth of cargo every day, including agricultural products, medicines and construction equipment. The Port Authority said that economic research has found that a single damage will cost the economy 10-25 million Canadian dollars a day. Canadian companies have called on the federal government to intervene to end this dispute, and due to the uncertain situation and the possibility of strikes, shipping companies have begun to move their cargo to other locations.