It's the final piece of a port puzzle that could provide B.C.'s Asia Pacific Gateway with the labour stability it has lacked and its reputation in international shipping circles desperately needs.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 514, which represents approximately 500 ship and dock foremen, voted January 30 to accept an eight-year collective agreement with the BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA).
The agreement, which has been ratified by the BCMEA, was reached after 25 months of bargaining. It follows the eight-year agreement signed last spring by five ILWU longshore locals representing 4,500 longshoremen.
(See "Port labour peace buoyed by historic longshore deal" – issue 1127;May 31-June 6, 2011.)
Both agreements, which are retroactive to April 1, 2010, expire on March 31, 2018.
Port Metro Vancouver president and CEO Robin Silvester said the two agreements herald "an unprecedented period of labour stability in the Gateway."
Greg Vurdela, BCMEA's vice-president of marketing, customer and government relations, added that the latest agreement creates "a tremendous commercial advantage" for Canada's Asia-Pacific Gateway.
"It certainly goes a long way to dispelling the myth associated with the Gateway in terms of labour unreliability and instability," he said, referring to the port's long history of labour tensions.
Vurdela said last year's agreement has already helped the port secure cargo gains.He added that the latest agreement significantly improves port employers' business pitch to the Asian market.
"It gives the users and stakeholders in the Gateway a tremendous global marketing opportunity to ensure that they retail the Gateway not only for today but certainly for many years to come as a stable, cost-effective, reliable environment in which to ship their goods in and out of Canada."
Port Metro Vancouver's recently released 2011 year-end results showed a 3.4% cargo volume increase over 2010.
Silvester said that from the port's perspective, labour negotiations with the foremen's union have historically proved as challenging as those with the longshore locals. He noted that in early 2009, during the previous round of negotiations with the foremen's union in 2009, shipping companies diverted cargo to rival U.S. ports.
"Not because there was a strike; there wasn't. Not because there was a lockout; there wasn't – but because there was uncertainty because the negotiations were in a very tense period," he said.
Silvester called the foremen's agreement a "great achievement" and said both labour agreements were "fundamentally important" and "the envy of our competitors." He added that the long agreements will free up the BCMEA and the ILWU to focus on priorities beyond collective agreements.
"We've had this cycle of three-year contracts during which there are two years of negotiation and a one-year breather," he said.
"We've now got an agreement structure that allows the parties to sit down and talk about what they need to work on together to continue to make this one of the most competitive gateways in North America."
Staff at the foremen's union office, speaking on behalf of Local 514 president Frank Scigliano, declined interview requests from Business in Vancouver. •
