by NOEMI LOPINTO

For the past six weeks, Caroline Russel has been anxious to get back to work on the marina at the Old Port of Montreal. She and 360 of her co-workers had been locked out by their employer, until 63 per cent of the union voted in favour of a new contract last Monday evening. Even retroactively applied, the new agreement will do little for Russel herself, so she’s on the hunt for a second job.

“I basically have one day to decide what I am doing,” Russel says. “I don’t have enough hours for a pay raise and I’ll have to look for another job in September anyway. When the results came out a lot of people were really pissed off. We get a four per cent pay increase, and then when you’ve worked 650 hours, a one per cent increase, but it only kicks in starting next April. I’ll be gone by then. Part-time workers may never reach the minimum. That’s the way it’s been for the whole summer, nothing solid or certain. Everything has been really shaky.”

In late May, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), a union affiliated with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, organized a 48-hour strike. The Société du Vieux-Port de Montréal (SVPM) locked workers out the next day. They also obtained a court injunction barring picketers from numbering more than six at any given location, from being seen at the entrances to the 2.5 kilometres of Port territory and from using microphones. The also hired scabs, which the labour law allows for federal agencies. The SVPM is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canada Lands Company, itself a Crown corporation.

According to SVPM media spokesperson Lily Robert, these measures were necessary to keep up appearances and services. “Most of the Old Port activities are organized by independent producers or small businesses,” she says. “We had to give them basic services. We don’t know how we will be doing financially, from one year to the next.”

According to SVPM’s 2002 financial report, the Old Port saw seven million visitors last year, generating nearly $32-million in sales and nearly $72-million in total economic impact for surrounding area. While the SVPM invested over $170-million in Montreal’s Cité Multimedia, $200-million in the expansion of the Palais des Congrès, the corporation reduced other expenditures by 8.9 per cent in 2002, imposing a hiring freeze and a reorganization of employee work schedules. Employees had already been working without a contract since 2001.

Old Port employees currently earning between $9 and $16 an hour. With this new agreement, not much will have changed. By union vice-president Gontran Laurendeau’s calculations, the highest earners will make an extra 40 cents more per hour. Laurendeau will now return to being a ticket booth supervisor. He says the members have spoken.

“People were anxious to get back to work, one of many reasons for choosing to accept the offer,” says Laurendeau. “All I can tell you is, we wanted more and we didn’t get it.”