St. Lawrence Seaway Closed By Canadian Strikers

On October 21, employees of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation (SLSDC) went on strike, shutting down Canadian portions of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a binational waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. A 72-hour strike notice on October 18 followed unsuccessful salary and contract negotiations between the union and the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation.

Although the dispute involved only a Canadian union and certain ports and locks, the strike shut down the entire Seaway system. Two U.S. locks in Massena, N.Y., are inoperable as traffic has been cut off by Canadian locks on each side. Customers and shippers made plans to reroute shipments through East Coast ports. Remediation talks between the parties were set for October 27 in Toronto.

Cargo moving through the international waterway accounts for $50.9 billion in economic activity, $23.3 billion in wages and more than 350,000 jobs. A 2020 economic analysis determined that a two-week closure of the Seaway would result in the loss of more than 19,000 jobs in the United States and Canada.

An online editorial by the American Great Lakes Port Association excoriated the Canadian government for what it saw as its laissez-faire attitude to the strikes. “At our ports, stevedores and longshoremen have no ships to unload, marine pilots are out of work, trucking companies have no deliveries to make and tugboats are idle.
Our customers are making plans now to reroute their products through East Coast ports. Despite these negative impacts, there seems to be no urgency to resolving the crisis. … Despite claims that they are ‘engaged,’ the Canadian Labour and Transport Ministers appear to be slow-walking the resolution of this strike.”

While the group didn’t take sides in the underlying dispute, it did urge the Canadian government to “demonstrate greater urgency in bringing this to an end.”