All grain movement at Vancouver’s grain terminals ceased at midnight
Aug. 25 after the British Columbia Terminal Elevator Operators locked
out approximately 600 members of the Grain Workers Union.
BCTEO represents five Vancouver-based grain terminals in collective
bargaining with GWU. They include Agricore United, Cascadia Terminal,
James Richardson International Limited, Pacific Elevators and
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Bob MacPherson, GWU president, said its members have been working under
a contract that expired on Dec. 31, 2000.
MacPherson said the main bargaining issues involve scheduling and
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recalls from layoffs.
He said overall hours worked each week would decrease, little notice to
seniority rules would be given for shift changes and laid-off workers
could no longer be recalled for jobs at other terminals.
“Wages are not an issue,” he said.
MacPherson said the lockout is bad for business.
“We have a reputation of being reliable and want to preserve that;
grain companies have hurt our reliability,” said MacPherson.
GWU will meet Aug. 29 to vote on the current offer. He expected it
would be rejected because it means lost jobs.
Murdoch MacKay, managing director of terminal services for Agricore
United, said negotiations and third party involvements over the last 20
months have not been produced an agreement.
He said their goal was to increase wages for workers, improve severance
and early retirement programs while making changes to compete with
tendering and deregulation in the industry.
“We need to have some changes in our operations at terminals, which
would allow us more efficiencies and flexibility,” he said.
He said three ships were in the harbour Aug. 26, with more expected in
the coming days. He noted August is a slow month at the terminal, which
expects volumes on this year’s crop to drop to seven to eight million
tonnes from the 11 million tonnes handled last year.
On Aug. 26, the Canadian Wheat Board invoked the labour dispute clause
in its contracts to limit any financial penalties that might be
incurred for delays in shipping grain to customers due to the lockout.
MacKay said no demurrage costs were yet accumulating.
