Goods flowing through Montreal port again

MONTREAL — Things are getting back to normal again as the longshoremen’s union approved a tentative agreement on Saturday to end a week-long labor standoff at the port.

The Maritime Employers Association had locked out nearly 900 longshoremen last week after labor talks stalled earlier this month.
The temporary deal, which includes the reinstatement of 169 on-call positions that were cut, runs until October.

While workers are back on the docks clearing the backlog of containers today, the union and management will continue full contract talks with a federal mediator.

The agreement couldn’t have come sooner.

The Port of Halifax, which welcomed additional container freight during the disruption in Montreal, ran into problems after a few days.

Even though it had the capacity to handle extra ships, bottlenecks at the unloading docks delayed container movement through the east coast.