British Columbia\u2019s container ports are set for an indefinite shut down this week as maritime employers planned to lock out longshore foremen after they began a strike Monday. While the lockout would not technically affect other longshore workers, uncertainty about the job actions taken by the foremen\u2019s union will force marine terminals to shutter.<\/p>\n
The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) said in a statement Monday that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) 514, representing about 730 longshore foremen, began its strike Monday morning at ports across the province. In response, the BCMEA said it would begin a lockout of Local 514 members with Monday\u2019s evening shift and \u201ccontinuing until further notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canadian labor law requires that employers see strike activity commence before issuing a formal lockout notice. That strike activity could take the form of an actual picket, a refusal to work an overtime shift, or similar job actions.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s Labor Minister Steve MacKinnon said in a statement Saturday that while federal mediators are available, \u201cit is the responsibility of the parties to reach an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said that it expects disruptions at the Port of Vancouver beginning Monday. Vancouver is Canada\u2019s largest container port.<\/p>\n
The vessel impact appears limited so far as only one ship, the 12,726-TEU YM Target, is currently at berth in Vancouver, according to Sea-web a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global. The 4,250-TEU Cosco Auckland is currently at berth at the Port of Prince Rupert, which would also be affected by a work stoppage. No container ships are sitting at Vancouver\u2019s anchorages due to inclement weather in the region.<\/p>\n
At least seven container ships are scheduled to call Vancouver through mid-November, Sea-web data shows. Three are expected to call Prince Rupert.<\/p>\n
Canadian Pacific-Kansas City railroad said in a schedule update Monday that it\u2019s no longer accepting export cargo for Vancouver due to the strike.<\/p>\n
Union \u2018extremely angry\u2019 about lockout<\/p>\n
Local 514 said in a statement last week that its members are \u201cextremely angry\u201d that the BCMEA planned to lock out its members. The union said its members were only planning to refuse overtime work or to implement new technology at the port, rather than a full-blown walkout. The union alleged the lockout is an \u201cattempt to force the federal government to intervene in the dispute.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the BCMEA said in a Saturday statement that the lockout was a necessary precaution. Canadian labor law allows unions to change from one type of job action to another, creating a risk for a full-blown walkout, BCMEA said. Due to the heavy reliance on overtime shifts for cargo handling, a refusal to work overtime would severely disrupt port operations anyway, and terminals won\u2019t request longshore labor without union supervision.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a union commences strike action, the Canada Labor Code has no restrictions on the union subsequently changing the nature of its strike,\u201d the BCMEA said in Saturday\u2019s statement. \u201cFor example, a strike may start as an overtime ban and escalate \u2014 in minutes, hours or days \u2014 to a full-scale strike action without notice, where all workers walk off the job. This potential creates tremendous uncertainty and significant operational and safety challenges for operators.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local 514 has been working without a collective bargaining agreement since March 2023. The BCMEA is offering longshore foremen a 19.2% raise over four years, similar to the pay raise accepted by other ILWU longshore workers in Canada.<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Angell, M. (2024f, November 4). BC container ports set for shutdown after foremen begin strike<\/i>. Journal of Commerce. https:\/\/www.joc.com\/article\/bc-container-ports-set-for-shutdown-after-foremen-begin-strike-5785499<\/p>\n British Columbia\u2019s container ports are set for an indefinite shut down this week as maritime employers planned to lock out longshore foremen after they began a strike Monday. While the lockout would not technically affect other longshore workers, uncertainty about the job actions taken by the foremen\u2019s union will force marine terminals to shutter. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[86,84],"class_list":["post-3123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canadian-ports","tag-maritime"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3124,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123\/revisions\/3124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}