A strike by longshore workers at British Columbia’s West Coast ports is expected to continue after the employers’ group announced plans to step away from further bargaining.
The B.C. Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA), in a statement Monday, said it’s “of the view that a continuation of bargaining at this time is not going to produce a collective agreement” with its longshore workers’ union, which went on strike Saturday morning.
While any prolonged strike at the West Coast could snarl many of Canada’s supply chains, longshore work at port grain terminals at Vancouver and Prince Rupert is not affected. The Canada Labour Code requires that loading or movement of grain vessels continue during any such work stoppage. The association and workers’ union also confirmed last Friday that service to cruise ships at the West Coast would not be affected.
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The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU Canada), in a separate statement Tuesday, said it received a message Monday from federal mediators that the BCMEA had “walked away from the table.”
The BCMEA, which represents 49 employers at B.C.’s waterfront, such as ship owners and agents, stevedores and container and cruise ship terminal operators, said Monday it “has gone as far as possible on core issues” in talks, but the union “seems to have entrenched their positions.”
The ILWU and BCMEA had been in talks with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) since March 28.
The employers’ group said Monday the union “is attempting to aggressively expand their scope and re-define Regular Maintenance Work far beyond what is set out in the industry-wide agreement, which has been legally well established for decades.”
Under their collective agreement, which expired March 31, the union “exclusively supplies the labour force” but “has been consistently unable to fulfill the trades work they have jurisdiction over.”
Also, the BCMEA described the union’s proposals for compensation as “unreasonable, and well outside the established norm of union settlements in Canada.”
ILWU Canada, in a separate statement Monday, said the BCMEA “has accused the union of trying to expand its scope of work beyond regular maintenance.” Rather, the union said, it “has been raising the issue of the rampant contracting out of our maintenance work for years” and its focus in bargaining “has been to stop the erosion of jurisdiction and the extensive use of contractors.”
As for compensation, the union said it “did not take the position that gorging on massive profits was unreasonable, but we did take the position that it is reasonable for the workers that helped to achieve those record profits in the first place to have a fair and equitable share of them.”
The union said it also “hope(s) that the association is not hiding behind the threat of back-to-work legislation and binding arbitration to avoid engaging in bargaining with the union.”
Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, in a separate tweet Tuesday, said he “encourage(s) both parties to immediately return to the bargaining table and remain there until a deal is reached.”
Collective bargaining, he said, “is hard work but it’s how the best, most resilient deals are made.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network
