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Placing St. Lawrence Seaway employees picket outdoors the St. Lambert Lock in St. Lambert, Quebec, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023.
Graham Hughes/AP
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Graham Hughes/AP
Placing St. Lawrence Seaway employees picket outdoors the St. Lambert Lock in St. Lambert, Quebec, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023.
Graham Hughes/AP
MINNEAPOLIS — A deal was reached Sunday to finish a week-long strike that had shut down a serious transport artery within the Nice Lakes, halting the move of grain and different items from the U.S. and Canada.
Round 360 employees 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 shifting once more when workers return to work at 7 a.m. Monday.
“We now have in hand an settlement that is honest for employees and secures a robust and steady future for the Seaway,” CEO Terence Bowles mentioned in an announcement Sunday.
Unifor mentioned a vote to ratify the deal might be scheduled within the coming days.
“Particulars of the tentative settlement will first be shared with members and might be made public as soon as an settlement is ratified,” mentioned a union assertion.
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 (3,700 kilometers) 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 yr. Ships that journey it embrace oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick with the lakes.
It is the primary time {that a} strike has shut down the very important transport artery since 1968.
The Chamber of Marine Commerce estimated that the strike, which befell throughout one of many busiest instances of the yr for the seaway, induced 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 customers around the globe,” chamber president Bruce Burrows mentioned in an announcement Sunday.
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