Montreal Port Struggle
41 billion dollars in merchandise per year, passing through a gigantic bottleneck, the power of the Port of Montreal’s dock workers is their ability to block this crucial point. That is why they laughed at the bosses during the lockout in 2010 and in five days brought the employers to their knees. So the bourgeoisie is trying to take away the Dockers freedom to strike.
Faced with a strike mandate on April 2, 2019, port employers decided to appeal to the Canada Industrial Relations Board to declare the port’s activities as essential services. Since then, the union has postponed the strike, waiting for the board’s decision. This decision would be very serious for the workers as it would limit the freedom to strike for all Canadian dockers as well as for large sections of logistics workers.
Because it must be understood that this attack places it in a moment of repositioning the Port of Montreal and its surroundings as a logistics hub on the east coast. There are investments of $1.65 billion which provide for the addition of a new container unloading facility and the construction of a new logistics hub focused on online purchases. To make its investments profitable, the Quebec bourgeoisie intends to use its privileged relations with France, and therefore with the European Union. But that potential profitability needs to be guaranteed with reduced labor costs and stability, particularly to face increased competition from the Port of New York and New Jersey. This reality must also be seen in the growing role that logistics plays in the reproduction cycle of capital, while consumption is increasingly based online ordering and deliveries.
The argument for restricting the freedom to strike is medical equipment is shipped through ports and a strike would be harmful to patients in the health care system. This fabrication is particularly tasteless when we know that Port workers unload necessary medical equipment during strikes and for 30 years hospitals have never been affected by the port work stoppages. Also, if the board were to agree with the employer, this would be legal precedent against any job actions at transportation companies which transport medical equipment. This is a pure and simple attack by the bourgeoisie on the freedom to strike which will be followed by an all-out offensive on working conditions.
It is not surprising that the bourgeoisie would want to take the working class’ weapon – the strike – from its hands. The regime union’s response is also unsurprising. For almost eight months the Port workers union has patiently waited for bourgeois legality to give the green light for a strike. The delay giving all plenty of time to the bosses to organize. The union has remained committed to a strategy of symbolic protests and lawyers offices.
Workers need to take control and leadership of their strikes as the only way to defend the freedom to strike is to use it, and to employ it as extensively as possible. Also necessary is go beyond the limitations of workplace and category. For dockers a natural step would be to try to involve workers from the entire logistics sector in the fight. A group of dockworkers from Genoa, the Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali (CALP), has tried to do this in Italy by participating in recent strikes in the logistics warehouses organized by the rank and file union, SI Cobas.
To see one of the most potentially powerful unions in the country powerless awaiting bourgeois legalities only screams the need for autonomous fighting bodies of the working class.