Two labour disputes are heating up in Vancouver and some prairie grain exports could get burned.
The longshoreman’s union and the truckers’ union are both considering strikes. A strike by either union or a lockout by the employers would disrupt container shipments but not bulk grain, so mainly special crop exports would be affected.
Bulk grain shipments by railcar through the port are protected by federal legislation that minimizes disruptions to grain shipments in labour disputes.
Pulse shippers are watching anxiously.
“We’re very concerned,” said Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers.
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“It would be unfortunate because we had a good early shipping season but then the global financial crisis slowed things down. I fully expect things to pick up in the new year unless we have a work stoppage.”
The truckers are threatening to strike if employers don’t stop undercutting wage rates that were agreed to after a dispute in 2005. That dispute saw owner-operators refuse to haul to the port for weeks in order to negotiate better wages. Now, most of those truckers belong to the Canadian Auto Workers or other unions. The CAW is threatening to hold a strike vote soon.
No contract
The dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and employers also threatens to disrupt container traffic in the port. The workers have been without a contract since July.
In mid-December there were fears that there could be a work stoppage as early as Jan. 2, but both sides say the earliest would be Jan. 12.
Right now the employers organization is considering a union proposal to which it will respond by Jan. 9, it says.
