They might be only acting heads of the Office of the BC Container Trucking Commissioner, but high-profile mediators Corinn Bell and Vince Ready need to find a long-term solution to Port Metro Vancouver’s container truckers dispute.
Bell, appointed acting commissioner on October 6, and Ready, acting deputy commissioner, are no strangers to the complexities of the long-standing rift over pay rates and trucker turn times at container terminals that has resulted in three major interruptions in the flow of containers through the port over the past 16 years.
They helped broker the resolution to the March 2014 truckers strike.
Aside from that 28-day interruption of port traffic and its cost to retailers, it again eroded global shipping confidence in West Coast port reliability.
The lengthy longshore labour contract negotiations that likewise stalled container goods movement through major West Coast American ports from mid-2014 through early 2015 cost customers an estimated US$7 billion and diverted more container shipments to Gulf and East Coast ports.
As container-shipping rates continue to fall, major international carriers are forming alliances to maximize economies of scale and ordering larger vessels that carry more containers but make fewer stops at fewer major ports.
Port reliability and efficiency are therefore fundamental to securing their continued business.
Aided by a weak Canadian dollar and good rail connections to the North American heartland, Port Metro Vancouver is well placed to be one of those ports. But another container trucking strike would overshadow its many upsides in the minds of shippers and global carriers.
Among other things, the container trucking commission needs to enforce meaningful accountability in the issue of retroactive pay owed to independent container truckers.
Without that, there will be no long-term resolution to the conflict, and without that resolution there will be no long-term assurances in the US$4 trillion container-shipping sector that Port Metro Vancouver is a credible and reliable major-league player.
