OTTAWA – Prairie wheat pool leaders traveled to Ottawa last week to suggest the Liberal government investigate how labor affects the competitiveness of the grain export industry.
They told a Commons committee that with the loss of $560 million-a-year in Crow Benefit subsidies, farmers need a more efficient grain handling and transportation system if they are to survive.
They said labor practices and costs are a major reason the Canadian system is often seen as less competitive than the American system.
“Prairie Pools Inc. very strongly advises that the government of Canada launch a review of the role of labor and its impact on the competitiveness of Canada’s grain and oilseed industry,” the pools said in their April 27 brief to a Commons committee studying the impacts of the Aug. 1 end of the Crow Benefit.
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PPI chair Ray Howe said it is the most urgent need coming out of the end of the subsidy.
However, he said in an interview the pools have not joined those, like United Grain Growers and the Reform party, that argue the right to strike should be abolished in the grain handling and movement industry.
“We have not gone that far,” said Howe, vice-president of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. “We’d be the last ones to say there isn’t a place for unions in today’s environment. It may be more necessary than it has ever been.”
He told MPs that labor should be included in any review. It would be in the unions’ interest to understand the competitive pressures facing the grain industry.
In the long run, union members would benefit if a more competitive system resulted in more jobs, he argued.
The pools also argued that governments should reduce the tax burden now imposed on the system. Canadian tax bills are many times higher than comparable taxes in the U.S.
They insisted any cost reductions which flow from abandoning rail branch lines should be shared with farmers. “Individual farmers who are negatively affected by branch line abandonment should be compensated.”
The pool call for a concentration in the cost of labor and work rules was endorsed heartily by some in Ottawa and treated cautiously by others.
Reform MPs have been arguing for an end to strikes even before there is a study.
Common complaint
Liberal MP Bernie Collins has made complaints about labor costs and work practices a regular part of his comments on grain hauling.
But National Farmers Union president Nettie Wiebe told MPs they should not become diverted from larger issues by focusing on internal tensions.
Liberal Wayne Easter, a former NFU president and chair of the Commons committee, agreed.
“There is a danger of this becoming an isolated focus on labor to the exclusion of everything else,” he told the pool executives, while supporting their call for a look at labor costs. “It could be a diversion.”
