St. Lawrence Seaway Reaches Deal to Finish Transport Strike
Putting St. Lawrence Seaway staff picket outdoors the St. Lambert Lock in St. Lambert, Quebec on Oct. 23. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press by way of AP)
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MINNEAPOLIS — A deal was reached Oct. 29 to finish a weeklong strike that had shut down a serious delivery artery within the Nice Lakes, halting the circulate of grain and different items from the U.S. and Canada.
Round 360 staff in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out Oct. 22 in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Administration Corp.
Seaway Administration mentioned ships will begin transferring once more when staff return to work at 7 a.m. Oct. 30.
“Now we have in hand an settlement that’s honest for staff and secures a robust and secure future for the Seaway,” CEO Terence Bowles mentioned in an announcement Oct. 29.
Unifor mentioned a vote to ratify the deal will probably be scheduled within the coming days.
“Particulars of the tentative settlement will first be shared with members and will probably be made public as soon as an settlement is ratified,” mentioned a union assertion.
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The strike shut down 13 locks on the seaway between Lake Erie and Montreal, bottling up ships within the Nice Lakes and stopping extra ships from coming in.
The St. Lawrence Seaway and Nice Lakes are a part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretches greater than 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion (almost $17 billion Canadian) price of cargo final 12 months. Ships that journey it embody oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick with the lakes.
It’s the primary time {that a} strike has shut down the very important delivery artery since 1968.
The Chamber of Marine Commerce estimated that the strike, which came about throughout one of many busiest occasions of the 12 months for the seaway, brought on the lack of as much as $100 million per day in financial exercise throughout Canada and the U.S.
“We’re happy that this interruption in very important Seaway visitors has come to an finish, and we are able to focus as soon as extra on assembly the wants of shoppers all over the world,” chamber president Bruce Burrows mentioned in an announcement Oct. 29.
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