While big business and west coast employers last week raged against Canada Labor Code amendments affecting export grain movement, support for the proposals came in a rare show of unity from grain companies and their employees’ unions.
And the prairie alfalfa dehydrators’ industry protested that it inadvertently falls outside grain protection offered by the proposed legislation. It asked MPs to include protection for export pellets.
At issue is federal legislation to change the Canada Labor Code.
One of the most contentious changes would protect export grain from being grounded by third-party work stoppages not connected to grain companies or their unions.
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Last week as a Commons committee heard witnesses, west coast employers protested that taking grain out of the equation would make labor relations worse.
The Business Council of British Columbia complained that without the political pressure for a legislated settlement that grain disputes bring, west coast labor spats could be prolonged.
No special status
Like opposition Reform MPs, west coast employers complained that grain exports should not be given a protected status beyond other bulk commodities that can be grounded by a strike or lock-out.
But for parties directly involved in port grain movement, the arguments of non-grain employers are exactly the point.
They said last week they support the Labor Code changes because it will remove grains’ status as a hostage to other labor disputes.
Prairie Pools Inc. told MPs that a dispute between grain workers and west coast terminal elevator operators has stopped grain flow just once in the past decade.
However, exports have been stopped and Canada’s reputation as a reliable grain supplier has been hurt four times by disputes between longshoremen and the B.C. Maritime Employers’ Association. Pressure from grain farmers led to a legislated back-to-work settlement three out of four times.
“The pools welcome the provisions … which prevent labor disputes other than those between grain employers and employees from stopping the flow of grain in the port,” said the PPI brief March 26.
Last week, the west coast Grain Workers Union and the Grain Services Union added their support.
“The proposed section … preserves the right of grain handlers and their employers to participate in free collective bargaining without intervention,” GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner told MPs April 2. “The fact that grain movement would not be disrupted by third-party disputes in the longshoring industry enjoys the unusual distinction of being supported by employers and unions alike.”
But the alfalfa dehy industry offered a note of dissent.
Because the proposed amendments do not use the western grain transportation act definition of included products, which would mean pellets, the dehy industry would not be protected by the amendments.
“Federal policy should not, on one hand, encourage this industry to develop export markets while on the other hand, put in place blunt instruments that undermine those markets,” said a Canadian Dehydrators’ Association brief. “The draft legislation leaves a $100 million agricultural export industry unprotected.”
