Port Milwaukee feels St. Lawrence Seaway union strike's impact

MILWAUKEE - St. Lawrence Seaway union workers went on strike Sunday, shutting down a major canal that connects Milwaukee to ports overseas.

"One of the advantages to our position on the Great Lakes is being able to have access to the international seaway," said Jackie Carter, Port Milwaukee's director.

Now, that access is at a temporary halt. Carter hopes for a timely resolution.

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"The international cargos that we need are not able to get in, and the cargos that exist in our region that need to get to international markets, can not get out," Carter said. "Not going to see revenue, because for every one of those vessels that come into Port Milwaukee they are paying us for their dockage, their warfage and any services we provide."

Around 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. The strike has shut down 13 locks between Lake Erie and Montreal, bottling up ships in the Great Lakes and preventing more ships from coming in.

Presque Isle steams into Port Milwaukee

Carter said it's not just Port Milwaukee that will feel the strike's impact. If it persists, she said it could affect items at the grocery store.

"Farmers and growers and the producers in our region have a real concern because how do they get their products to market?" she said. "As an industry, we always talk about the traffic through the seaway and the economic impact of the seaway – if you compared it to a country – it would be the third-largest economy in the world."

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The St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretches more than 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion worth of cargo last year.

It’s the first time that a strike has shut down the vital shipping artery since 1968. Before the union walked out early Sunday, it said they were still "1,000 nautical miles apart on wages" despite several months of negotiations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.