Automoves preparing for strike at Port of Montreal set to begin on Monday April 26
A general strike at the Port of Montreal is set to begin on Monday after the union representing dockworkers issued the required 72-hour notice to the Maritime Employers Association.
Barring a last-minute reprieve, the 1,150 port workers affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees will be in a legal strike position as of Monday at 7 a.m., which would paralyze the port.
The dockworkers have been on an overtime strike and have refused to work on weekends since April 17 and 18.
They say the actions are in response to a change in work shifts the Maritime Employers Association wants to impose as of Monday. That would see them work seven-hour shifts — up from five hours and 20 minutes.
That could throw another wrench into the automotive supply chain and dealer inventory, which is already low because suppliers and automakers are managing a global microchip shortage, lack of seat foam, COVID-19 limitations and a jumbled world inventory of shipping containers.
Hapag-Lloyd AG, a German international shipping and container transportation company, said in an email to customers that it expects that “terminal performance in the port will be severely impacted” just given the potential risk of workers taking action.
The latest failure to reach an agreement isn’t new. In 2020, a series of rotating strikes by Montreal dockworkers caused 21 container ships to divert to other ports, and the equivalent of 80,000 20-foot containers were either grounded or rerouted.
Automoves will continue to work with its export partners to alleviate accumulating vehicle stock because of the looming shut down. With warehouse locations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Halifax Automoves is in unique position to offer vehicle storage solutions to its export partners across Canada and help avoid high storage fees imposed by Impact, Copart, ICBC, SGI and MPI auctions. This means that our international buyer network can continue buying vehicles until export operations resume, without the worry of additional and unexpected cost.
