B.C. port employers to launch lockout at terminals as labour disruption begins

VANCOUVER –

Employers at British Columbia ports say they are going ahead with locking out more than 700 foremen across the province after strike activities from union members began.

The lockout will shut port terminals operated by members of the BC Maritime Employers Association, which are located across the B.C. coast from Victoria and Vancouver up to the Alaskan border.

The employers association said in a release on Monday that the lockout will begin on the 4:30 p.m. shift and continue until further notice but will not affect grain or cruise operations.

The association said that its “difficult decision” to launch the lockout comes after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 commenced “industry-wide strike activity” at employers’ terminals.

“ILWU Local 514’s strike action has already begun to impact B.C.’s waterfront operations and strike activity can easily escalate, including a complete withdrawal of labour without notice,” the employers said in explaining its decision to lock out union members.

Local 514 said in an email response that members went to work as normal at 8 a.m. Monday, but an overtime ban was implemented and workers “will refuse to participate in technological change as their limited job action.”

A statement from the union on Sunday said employers have “grossly overreacted” to its limited job action, which was aimed at restarting stalled talks that have been ongoing for almost two years.

The union has also described the employers’ lockout threat as an “attempt to force the federal government to intervene in the dispute.”

The two sides met for a few days of mediated talks last week to try to avoid a work stoppage in the dispute that has been ongoing since the last union contract expired in March 2023.

The union issued its notice of job action last Thursday in response to a “final offer” presented by employers a day earlier, an offer the association said would give a 19.2 per cent wage increase over the four-year agreement from April 2023 to March 31, 2027.

“The BCMEA’s final offer to the union represents our best effort to settle the dispute and move forward with an agreement that recognizes the skills and efforts of 730 hardworking forepersons and their families, while also ensuring Canada’s West Coast ports remain reliable and stable for the many customers and supply chain partners who conduct business there,” the association said in a letter to Local 514 president Frank Morena issued Wednesday.

The association also said the offer would also include a 16 per cent increase in retirement benefits, additional recognized holidays and an average $21,000 lump sum for eligible employees that includes back pay since the contract expired.

“Despite ILWU Local 514’s regrettable decision to destabilize Canada’s supply chain, the BCMEA’s comprehensive offer remains open until withdrawn,” the employers association said Monday.

In its response Sunday, the union said the proposal from the employers failed to address one of the key concerns for workers: a staffing requirement that addresses the implementation of port automation at facilities such as DP World’s Centerm container Terminal in Vancouver.

Local 514 said employers have “demanded the union agree to having technological change provisions of the Canada Labour Code that apply to all federally unionized workers waived in a new contract,” a demand that Morena called “ludicrous.”

“The idea that our union would waive provisions of the Canada Labour Code that protect not only ILWU Local 514 but all Canadian workers is absolutely outrageous,” Morena said in the statement Sunday.

Morena also said employers told the union that they would remove parts of the existing collective agreement — including retroactivity on wages as well as welfare and other benefit improvements — if the union did not accept its final offer presented Wednesday.

“Let me be crystal clear to the BCMEA: our union will not sign any contract which includes concessions that remove existing parts of our collective agreement that our members fought long and hard for over many years,” Morena said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.