Province orders unionized truckers back to work
Posted March 24, 2014 4:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The province has tabled legislation forcing 250 UNIFOR truckers back to work in the dispute with Port Metro Vancouver.
Bill 24 imposes a 90-day cooling off period with a mediator standing by to help with negotiations.
The union maintains the dispute at Vancouver’s container ports should be settled at the bargaining table.
Unifor’s BC representative Gavin McGarrigle says union members don’t seem ready to back down even though they will face fines of up to $400 a day for defying the back-to-work legislation.
“Our members are telling us that if they go to work, they lose money. They’ve got to put fuel in their trucks. They are telling us they don’t have anywhere to go anymore. They’re telling us, at this stage, it will be business as usual and they will continue to protest,” he says.
Labour lawyer Leo McGrady doesn’t think the government made the right move.
“It’s difficult to recall a work stoppage where back-to-work legislation has been effective and successful,” he says. “The net result is a very unhappy workforce. Sometimes it results in the loss of a workforce if there are other positions available in the market that they can take and generally I think it’s counterproductive.”
He says truckers who choose not to go back to work could face fines.
The legislation only impacts the UNIFOR members though; there are still hundreds of non-unionized drivers.
Greg Wilson with the Retail Council of Canada says small businesses have really been hurt by the work stoppage and he expects that will continue.
Many of them are racking up fees to store their products at the port.
“Essentially retailers get three free days and then after that it’s $250 a day for the first five days, then $350 a day for the next five days, and then $450 a day for anything beyond that,” explains Wilson. “I have one retailer who has racked up $5,000 for one container.”
Wilson says it has been detrimental to store owners who can’t afford to have products shipped through other ports.
“If you are one retailer with one container coming in a month — that delay of one container is a very serious question for you.”
Not only are businesses losing money in storage fees but they aren’t able to sell any of the products that are stuck at the port.
