Completion protocol, Canada St. Lawrence River freight resumed!!!

Ships along the St. Lawrence River have returned to work, ending an eight-day strike, after Unifor, the Canadian union, reached an agreement in a wage dispute with St Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.

The strike shut down a major shipping artery in the Great Lakes region, halting the flow of grain and other goods from the United States and Canada.

On Oct. 22, about 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec from Unifor, Canada's largest private sector union, went on strike in a wage dispute with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Company.

Seaway Management said ships will begin sailing again when employees return to work at 7 a.m. Monday.

"We have an agreement at hand that is fair to workers and ensures Seaway has a strong and stable future," Chief Executive Terence Bowles said in a statement on Sunday.

Unifor said it would schedule a vote to approve the deal in the coming days.

"Details of the tentative agreement will first be shared with members and will be made public when the agreement is approved," the union statement said.

The strike closed 13 locks in the waterway between Lake Erie and Montreal, stranding ships in the Great Lakes and preventing more from entering.

The St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretch more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean to the western end of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In 2022, it carried more than $12 billion (nearly $17 billion CAD) worth of cargo. Ships that sail here include ocean "salt ships" and "lake boats" attached to lakes.

It was the first time since 1968 that a strike had shut down a vital shipping artery.

The Maritime Chamber of Commerce estimates that the strike, which comes during one of the busiest times of the year for shipping, is costing Canada and the United States up to $100 million a day in lost economic activity.

"We are pleased that the important maritime traffic disruption has ended and we can once again focus on meeting the needs of consumers around the world," Chamber President Bruce Burrows said in a statement Sunday.

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