Watch Now


Port of Montreal to reopen Sunday after strike truce

Longshore workers, port employers agree to seven-month breathing period hash out new contract

Operations at the Port of Montreal are expected to resume on Sunday after dock workers and employers reached a deal to end a strike. (Photo: Montreal Port Authority)

The Port of Montreal is expected to reopen Sunday after longshore workers and employers agreed to a seven-month truce that will end an 11-day strike

The Maritime Employers Association (MEA) and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the union representing longshore workers, announced the truce on Friday. Both sides voiced optimism that they can agree on a new contract before the seven months ends.

“We are truly confident we will reach a deal,” Martin Tessier, MEA president, told reporters in Montreal. 

Canada’s second-largest port is set to reopen on Sunday pending final negotiations between the MEA and the union. 


“It will take two to four weeks to recover,” Tessier said.

Longshore workers went on strike at the port on Aug 10. Without a contract since 2018, they are seeking higher wages and changes to hours and working conditions. 

Businesses and some politicians had been growing increasingly alarmed at the port strike and impacts on the supply chain as vessels diverted to other ports, mainly Halifax. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected calls to intervene.

Intermodal trucking company found silver linings from Port of Montreal strike

Corey Darbyson, director of Transport DSquare, an intermodal trucking company that services the port, welcomed the tentative agreement. 


“It’s going to help maintain the supply chain and give people a paycheck,” Darbyson said. 

He expects the impacts of the strike will be relatively short-lived. Darbyson noted, “Montreal is a port city.” 

DSquare managed to find some silver linings from the disruption. While the carrier took a hit from the falloff in incoming vessels, it picked up a lot of business of hauling containers to Halifax that CN and Canadian Pacific railways couldn’t accommodate. 

“It was good for us in some ways,” Darbyson said. “It created a little turmoil and gave us some very good spot rates and we were able to compensate for some of our losses.”

Click for more FreightWaves articles by Nate Tabak.

Trucker charged with trafficking meth from US to Canada

US border officers find pot, not furniture, in Canadian truck

Truckers warned of fake quarantine text messages in Canada


Nate Tabak

Nate Tabak is a Toronto-based journalist and producer who covers cybersecurity and cross-border trucking and logistics for FreightWaves. He spent seven years reporting stories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe as a reporter, producer and editor based in Kosovo. He previously worked at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the San Jose Mercury News. He graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of American policing. Contact Nate at ntabak@freightwaves.com.