The approximately 360 Unifor union members who work at the St. Lawrence Seaway are in their second day of strike, Monday, as the employer tries to obtain an exception to the strike for the transport of grain.

Maritime traffic in the corridor that connects Montreal to Niagara, passing through the locks, has been paralyzed since Sunday at 12:01 a.m.

Members of affected Unifor locals in Quebec and Ontario were 99% in favor of the strike.

The employer, the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, is asking the Canada Industrial Relations Board – the equivalent of the labor court for federal jurisdiction – to obtain an exemption for the transportation of grain.

He thus invokes a little-known article of the Canada Labor Code, which stipulates that during a strike or lockout, an employer in the longshoring sector or another sector of activity concerned and their employees are required to “maintain their activities relating to the mooring and undocking of grain vessels at approved terminal or transshipment facilities, as well as their loading, and their entry into and exit from a port.”

Unifor, for its part, argues that this article of the Labor Code refers to a port, terminal or transshipment facilities, but not to canals and locks.

The Management Corporation’s request has not yet been heard by the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Contacted to find out if it would proceed with hearing the request and, if so, when, the Council had not yet responded at the time of writing these lines.