Union denies alleged assault on port workers was an ambush
Montreal police are investigating violence that erupted Wednesday evening in connection with the Port of Montreal conflict, where longshoremen, foremen and maintenance workers on Monday called a four-day strike.
The Maritime Employers Association strongly condemned what happened at a news conference on Thursday.
Police intervened around 7 p.m. Wednesday, following a 911 call, in the parking lot of the Olympic Stadium, where many executives and security guards were assaulted after exiting a bus that shuttled them between the parking lot and the port. When police arrived, the attackers had already fled.
According to Martin Tessier, president of the Maritime Employers Association, nearly 50 strikers, some armed with sticks, were waiting for the employees doing the replacement work at the Port of Montreal.
“There are people who have been hit in the face, people who have had their phones stolen,” Tessier said at a news conference. “There are people who have had their wallets stolen. We were in the Olympic Stadium parking lot and there were people waiting for them and when our people started to get out of the buses, people started to get out of their cars. Some had sticks.”
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
Montreal police confirmed they are investigating complaints of assault and theft and possibly cases of harassment and threats.
At a news conference on Thursday, union representative Michel Murray, said the union took full responsibility for the events.
“It wasn’t an ambush,” he said. “It was a picket line that went wrong.”
Murray said that “longshoremen are not bullies; they are not bloodthirsty ogres; they are not animals.” Union members ambushing strikebreakers is “ridiculous,” he added.
The union spokesperson accused the executives of provoking the strikers.
“This is not a throwback to the 1970s of labour relations,” Murray said. “This is what happens from time to time when we call on scabs.”
Murray admitted, however, that teams had been formed “to piss off (strikebreakers) like they piss off us.”
Earlier, on his Facebook page, Murray asked members to “not make any comments on social networks.”
The longshoremen called a fourday strike on Monday as negotiations stumble over work schedules.
The next day, the Canadian Union of Public Employees denounced the presence of strikebreakers at the scene of the conflict.
The strike will officially end at 6:59 a.m. Friday. The union announced that picket lines would be lifted as of Thursday evening.