The strike at the Port of Montreal is in its third day.

About 350 dock workers, represented by a union local affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, are involved in a three-day strike at two terminals as they demand higher wages and better scheduling. The two affected terminals – Viau and Maisonneuve Termont – handle 40 per cent of the facility’s container traffic.

The longshore workers’ contract with the Maritime Employers Association expired on December 31st. On Sunday, the association said it has tried everything to avoid a strike, from mediation to an emergency meeting with the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Since it’s a limited strike, they’re expected to head back to work Thursday morning.

Greg Northey is the Vice-President of Corporate Affairs at Pulse Canada, which is also a member of the Ag Transport Coalition. He’s been following this dispute and says a limited strike is a tool in the union’s toolbox to get a better deal with the association.

“Any union who has a strike mandate, which this union does, they can choose to go on strike for a permanent period of time or they can choose to use that strike mandate in however way they want,” explained Northey. “This union has chosen to have what they’re describing as a limited strike from Monday to Thursday, and they would do that to gain leverage at the bargaining table. We would anticipate if a deal is not struck that it would continue to periodically leverage their strike action, so go on strike again for a period of time…then come back and go on strike again, so the timing and everything else would depend on what’s happening at the bargaining table.”

Northey expects the workers to return to work Thursday for a brief time before walking off the job again should no tentative deal be agreed upon by both sides.

How much of an impact this will have on the supply chain depends on how long the strike lasts. Northey says the longshore workers in Montreal had been on strike several times over the past few years and “there’s already been a diversion away from Montreal.”

“We’ve seen vessels avoiding it and routes changing,” he added. “The damage is being done.”

The Port of Montreal is one of the major ports in Canada, exporting about one million tonnes of containerized grain annually.