Port workers, employers still talking but still without a new contract

They’re still talking.

That’s the good news on B.C.’s waterfront; the bad news is that that is pretty much all there is to report following Year 1 in the negotiations for a new collective agreement between the province’s maritime employers and longshore unions.

A new long-term deal to replace the landmark eight-year contract that expired last March is important for parties on both sides of the bargaining table, but it is also critical to maintaining the free flow of goods through the country’s Asia-Pacific Gateway and its contributions to the health of local, regional and national economies.

The expired contract helped ensure relative labour peace along B.C.’s waterfront while transpacific cargo expanded rapidly. 

It also helped re-establish Vancouver’s reputation for port reliability. That reliability was damaged in the 1970s by lengthy longshore labour disruptions and again in the late 1990s when employers locked out the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU). Illegal work stoppages also strained employer-union relationships, and operations at the port’s container terminals have been disrupted sporadically by an ongoing dispute between truckers and the port over driver pay rates and wait times at container terminals.

Failure to negotiate a new long-term collective agreement could also dull the competitive edge B.C. ports have established compared with ports in North America and Mexico that are vying for a bigger share of transpacific cargo.

Many of those competitors have invested heavily in transportation infrastructure to improve efficiency; major port labour unions in the United States have also negotiated new long-term labour deals with terminals and maritime employers.

In July 2017, the U.S. International Longshore and Warehouse Union signed a three-year extension of its contract with the Pacific Maritime Association. The original collective agreement ended a standoff that stalled cargo movement through major West Coast U.S. ports from mid-2014 through early 2015 and diverted some of that traffic north to the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert.

In September 2018, the International Longshoremen’s Association ratified an agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance. The six-year contract provides labour and port service stability at East Coast U.S. and Gulf of Mexico ports until 2024.

The BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) and the 6,000-member ILWU had 44 negotiating sessions in 2018. Lauren Chan, the BCMEA’s manager of communications and marketing, said another nine have been held this year and more sessions have been scheduled during March.

While she declined to say whether any significant progress has been made, Chan said it’s a positive sign that contract negotiations are continuing.

“We would be in a far worse position if there were no dates set [for negotiations] and [we] were at a standstill,” Chan said, “but, thankfully, that’s by no means the case right now.”

She also pointed out that the previous contract took approximately two years to negotiate.

“So this is all par for the course.”

As of press time, ILWU Canada president Robert Ashton had not responded to a Business in Vancouver request for comment, but in a previous interview Ashton said port employers and employees “are looking to get something done as fast as we can for the benefit not only of each side but also [for] our country.” 

BCMEA president and CEO Terry Duggan said in an interview in late 2018 that his organization was “cautiously optimistic” that it “will be able to bring in a collective agreement without any kind of service disruption.”

Duggan, who has been with the BCMEA for 32 years, is set to retire at the end of March after two years as the organization’s president and CEO. Chan said Mike Leonard, the BCMEA’s senior vice-president of labour relations, will take over Duggan’s role on April 1. Leonard has been with the organization for 18 years.

The BCMEA is also in contract negotiations with Local 514, the ship and dock foremen’s union.

There has been some recent contract success for B.C. marine employers. 

Late last year, Global Container Terminals (GCT), Canada’s largest maritime employer, reached a five-year deal with Local 502. The union represents about 60 container shipping planners at GCT’s Deltaport terminal at Roberts Bank and at Vanterm in Vancouver.  •

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@timothyrenshaw