Port of Montreal employer submits 'final' offer to dockworkers, threatens lockout

The Port of Montreal. (LA PRESSE CANADIENNE/Christinne Muschi)

The employers’ association at the Port of Montreal has issued the dockworkers' union a "final, comprehensive offer," threatening to lock out workers at 9 p.m. Sunday if a deal isn't reached.

The Maritime Employers Association (MEA) says its new offer includes a three per cent salary increase per year for four years and a 3.5 per cent increase for the two subsequent years. It says the offer would bring the total average compensation package of a longshore worker at the Port of Montreal to more than $200,000 per year at the end of the contract.

The local of the FTQ-affiliated Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents the 1,200 workers, and the Maritime Employers Association spent two hours at the federal Mediation and Conciliation Service on Friday, without making any progress.

However, “not much has changed in this offer,” said Michel Murray, union consultant for the dockworkers' union on Friday. “These are cosmetic changes.”

The union committee was due to meet in the afternoon and decide whether to submit the offer to its members. Murray sees “no problem” in submitting it to members by Sunday, and has little doubt as to the outcome, given how little has changed, in his view, since the last two offers were rejected by members in a secret ballot.

The MEA is offering 20 per cent wage increases over six years, while the union is demanding the same increases as those granted to those in Vancouver and Halifax – 20 per cent over four years.

It also denies that the workers would earn $200,000 in 2029 with the employer's new offer, as the MEA claimed in a news release. This would mean an hourly wage of $96, whereas dockworkers are paid $51.89 an hour, Murray noted.

On the thorny issue of work schedules – a central aspect of this dispute – the employers' association's position didn’t budge in the latest offer. “There's nothing in the employers' deposit that addresses the issue of working hours. Zero, zip, niet,” said Murray.

Lower wages and lock-out

As for the employer's threat to lock workers out, Murray finds it rather ironic that “for four years, he's been shouting from the rooftops that a port can't be closed. Now he wants to close the port starting Sunday.”

He also called out the employers' association for lowering the hourly wage of the dockworkers, just before declaring its lock-out, to increase the pressure.

“We informed the employer that we would not be making any vessels other than those with the applicable rates” prior to the wage cut, said Murray.

In its Thursday evening news release announcing its lockout, the employers' association maintained that the current negotiations “have major consequences for businesses in Quebec and Canada,” since the value of goods passing through the Port of Montreal reaches nearly $400 million a day, generating $268 million in economic activity.

On Friday, the MEA declined to comment further.

MacKinnon and Duclos press for agreement

In Ottawa, federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon once again urged the parties to negotiate at the table and reach agreement on renewing the collective agreement.

“It should be a fairly straightforward negotiation; it's a single job category,” he said.

Yet these negotiations have been going on for a year. And the last round of negotiations ended in a special law that forced the longshoremen back to work.

“I implore the parties to sit down together and make the necessary compromises,” insisted Minister MacKinnon.

Federal Supply Minister Jean-Yves Duclos also urged both parties. “These parties have to come to an agreement. We know it's been complicated for several years, that the two parties don't like each other. But now we need to pull together and find a win-win solution.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French Nov. 8, 2024.