Marine terminal operators and dockworkers at the Port of Montreal have a new five-year contract, imposed by an arbitration tribunal and announced Friday by the Maritime Employers Association (MEA). The deal ends a labor dispute that has disrupted Canada‘s second-largest container port since the previous agreement expired at the end of 2023.
The agreement is retroactive to 2024 and will last through 2028, the MEA said in a statement Friday. The contract covers the port’s roughly 1,200 longshore workers, represented by Local 375 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
It was imposed by a labor dispute arbitration tribunal acting under a decision of the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), following the federal government’s request that the negotiations be taken in that direction.
“We are pleased with the implementation of this new collective agreement,” said Nicola Dolbec, president of the MEA, in a statement. “After a period marked by uncertainty, this five-year agreement provides the stability needed to ensure the continued operations of the Port of Montreal and support the economic growth of the regions and industries it serves across the country. It will allow all stakeholders—customers, communities, employees and partners—to plan with confidence for the years ahead.”
CUPE Local 375 has not issued a public statement on the deal. Neither party has disclosed the contents of the agreement.
The timing matters well beyond the docks, because Prime Minister Mark Carney has made doubling Canada’s non-U.S. exports over the next decade the centerpiece of his government’s trade strategy.
Montreal is the eastern gateway for much of that diversification push, and two years of intermittent strikes and lockouts had been pushing cargo to U.S. East Coast ports instead. The diversification strategy was on display last week, when the Montreal Port Authority (MPA) renewed its 2018 collaboration agreement with India’s Adani Group, the conglomerate that operates several Indian seaports including Mundra Port.
India ranked as Montreal’s second-largest market in 2025, with 1 million metric tons of goods exchanged between the parties.
The road to getting a finalized contract was arduous. After direct talks that began in late 2023 failed, CUPE Local 375 staged a three-day strike at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals in late September 2024, followed by an indefinite overtime ban and then another strike at the two terminals, which handle about 40 percent of the port’s container traffic.
The MEA’s final offer early that November proposed a cumulative wage increase of more than 20 percent over six years, taking average longshore compensation above $200,000 Canadian dollars per year, the association said. Union members rejected it by 99.7 percent, and the MEA locked out the workforce that month.
After two days, the federal government stepped in to end the lockout, as it has repeatedly in recent Canadian labor disputes. Mediation under a federally appointed intermediary ran from late 2024 until the talks collapsed in March 2025, sending the dispute to final and binding arbitration, a process that took more than 18 months to resolve.
The union had sought wage increases of about 20 percent over four years, and its core demands centered on scheduling, work rules and forced overtime rather than pay alone. At the time. The MEA, for its part, said in October 2024 that cargo handled by Montreal longshore workers had fallen 24 percent since 2022, largely to the benefit of U.S. East Coast ports, as shippers routed around the uncertainty.
Early volume figures suggest shipper confidence in the port’s operations is starting to return. The MPA’s cumulative container traffic data, updated Monday, puts January-through-September volume at 1,208,701 TEUs, up 3 percent from the same period of 2025, with containerized tonnage up 2.7 percent to 9.65 million metric tons. Inbound boxes drove the growth, up 5.2 percent, while outbound traffic rose just 0.9 percent. That follows a 2.2 percent drop in containerized cargo tonnage in 2025.
The new contract also lands as the MPA pushes ahead with the largest expansion in the port’s history. Among the first major infrastructure initiatives the Carney administration backed was a $2.3-billion-Canadian-dollar ($1.7 billion) expansion at the port, which, when completed, would increase container handling capacity there by 60 percent.
Last September, the MPA and global port terminal operator DP World entered an agreement to expand port facilities at the Contrecoeur Terminal, about 40 kilometers downriver from Montreal. In-water work began in August, with land-based construction expected to begin next year. The port is expected to be completed and commissioned by 2030.
The next Canadian waterfront fight is already taking shape around automation. Late last month, roughly 100 dockworker delegates from four countries rallied outside DP World’s Centerm terminal at the Port of Vancouver, following an international anti-automation summit that included Montreal’s own CUPE Local 375.
The British Columbia longshore contract will be up for renewal in March 2027.