Firms scramble to cope with Montreal port lockout
The impact of a lockout that has shut down most activity
at the Port of Montreal is already being felt by businesses dealing
directly with the facility, while others, such as retailers, say they
can hold out for now, reported The Globe and Mail.
“This is very
serious for us,” said Diane Sirois, owner of Nova Containers, a La
Prairie, Quebec-based company that offers marine container, logistics
and distribution services to customers.
“All of our activities
have stopped,” Sirois said. “This has whipsawed us just as we were
starting to come out of the recession.”
Customers are seeking
alternative transit routes, such as through ports in Halifax and
Vancouver, she said. “That means a lot of extra costs for them.”
Canadian
National Railway has suspended rail service to the port, spokeswoman
Julie Sénécal said.
Some customers will be rerouting their
shipments to such distant ports as New York and Norfolk, Virginia, said
Gilles Corriveau, the spokesman for the Maritime Employers Association
(MEA), the group representing companies such as ship owners and terminal
operators that use the Port of Montreal's facilities.
It was the
MEA that locked out about 850 dock workers as of Monday morning, in a
labour conflict over pay guarantees and job security.
The port,
one of North America's largest container facilities, handles between 70
and 80 per cent of the consumer goods destined for Ontario and Quebec,
Corriveau said.
Everything from French wine and imported
furniture to exports of Canadian manufactured products is affected by a
lockout, he added.
All commercial operations at the port except
for grain handling have been halted as a result of the lockout.
The
lockout will cost “millions of dollars a day,” Corriveau said.
Alex
Roberton, a spokesman for the Quebec operations of Wal-Mart Canada
said: “We don't expect events at the Port of Montreal to affect our
customers. We have enough in stock at this point.”
Montreal, the
second-largest Canadian port after Vancouver, is a key transit hub for
goods destined for the US northeast and Midwest.
Corriveau said
the MEA had no choice but to begin a lockout because the pressure
tactics used by the unionised dock workers, such as working less
overtime, had begun to disrupt operations at the port.
Michel
Murray, an adviser to the Longshoremen's Union, CUPE Local 375, said the
MEA's move is “needless and unjustified,” given the positive framework
of talks that had been taking place as recently as Sunday.
The
unionised workers have been without a contract for about 18 months. A
key issue is the union's demand that longshoremen retain guaranteed
payments when they are on call but not actually working.
The MEA
says it simply can't afford to keep paying longshoremen when they aren't
working.
Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt urged both sides to
get back to the bargaining table as quickly as possible and said Ottawa
will closely monitor the situation.