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Three unions are now challenging the federal government’s recent decisions to intervene in major labor disputes, saying it undermines workers’ rights.

The union representing locked-out dock workers in Montreal was the latest Wednesday morning to announce its intention to challenge Ottawa’s intervention in court, shortly after the union representing locked-out workers in British Columbia announced its intention to retaliate.

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“We will fight this order in court. We will fight the forced contract arbitrated in court,” said Frank Morena, president of Local 514 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship & Dock Foremen, which represents workers in British Columbia, in a statement from press Tuesday.

Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon intervened Tuesday to revive the ports of British Columbia and Montreal after the employer lockout, ordering the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the resumption of all operations and moving the two series negotiations towards binding arbitration.

Container traffic at West Coast terminals has been halted since last week, after a labor dispute involving more than 700 longshore supervisors led to an employer lockout.

In Montreal, the Maritime Employers Association locked out 1,200 longshore workers Sunday night after workers rejected what employers called a final contract offer.

“Negotiated agreements are the best way forward, but we must not allow other Canadians to suffer when some parties fail to fulfill their responsibility to reach an agreement,” MacKinnon said in a statement Tuesday.

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He said he did not take the decision to intervene lightly, but that the shutdowns created a real economic risk.

“It is my duty and responsibility to act in the interests of businesses, workers, farmers, families and all Canadians. »

The mechanism used by the minister — section 107 of the Canada Labor Code — is the same one used by the government in August when Canadian National Railway Company and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. have locked out more than 9,000 workers, reducing rail operations to a critical level. stopping all over the country.

Labor experts at the time said the move appeared to be a workaround that made passing back-to-work legislation unnecessary, and warned it could set a dangerous precedent.

“The reason this is a worrying workaround is because there is no parliamentary debate. There is no vote in the House of Commons,” Larry Savage, a professor of labor law at Brock University, said in a September interview with The Canadian Press, calling it “very controversial.”

This decision gave rise to a legal challenge from the Teamsters Canada union.

Today, unions representing dockworkers in Montreal and British Columbia say they plan to challenge the minister’s intervention this week in court.

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In a press release Tuesday, Morena called the government’s decision an insult to the union and workers’ bargaining rights.

In the rail and port disputes, business groups have called on the government to do something as delays disrupt supply chains across the country.

On Tuesday, Greater Vancouver Board of Trade president Bridgitte Anderson said in a statement that about $6.1 billion in trade was disrupted at B.C. ports.

“The economic toll of the fourth major disruption to our supply chains has been severe,” she said.

Unions and labor groups have widely denounced the government’s recent interventions.

“The unions will fight until the end,” declared the national president of Teamsters Canada, François Laporte, on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Barry Eidlin, a sociology professor at McGill University, said the government’s decision to intervene weakens employers’ incentive to reach an agreement at the bargaining table.

“The purpose of the lockout was not to put pressure on workers; it was to put pressure on the government to intervene,” he said.

In the summer of 2023, a strike by various port workers in British Columbia lasted 13 days. The government did not intervene using Article 107 in this dispute. Earlier this year, he announced an investigation into the strike to prevent further major economic disruption.

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