The 400 members of a Vancouver container truckers union called off a threatened strike at the eleventh hour yesterday, but approximately 1,000 members of a non-unionized association remain off the job while an agreement is hammered out between the parties.
The truckers began meeting with government, Port Metro Vancouver and labour mediator Vince Ready March 6 in hopes of working out a solution to their concerns about wages and wait times. Members of the non-unionized United Truckers Association stopped working on February 26. The 400-member Vancouver Container Truckers' Association, affiliated with Unifor, were set to go on strike at noon on March 6.
As a sign of good faith, the VCTA said it will not go on strike while the deal is being worked out.
Normally, around 2,000 truck drivers work at the port.
If the VCTA had followed through on their promise to join the strike, that would have left just 600 truckers who would still be working, according to Port Metro Vancouver.
"There's no doubt that that's short of what we would require to maintain normal operations," Peter Xotta, vice-president of planning and operations at Port Metro Vancouver, told Business in Vancouver.
Both trucking groups say long waiting times at port terminals are reducing truckers' pay, many of whom are paid by the trip. They also say pay rates have declined because of undercutting. The VCTA has been without a collective agreement since June 2012.
"There's just not a stable environment to operate in," said Gavin McGarrigle, British Columbia area director for Unifor.
McGarrigle said the port has also downloaded costs to truckers, such as an expensive upgrade to their trucks to meet emissions standards set by the port.
In turn, the port says it has several road infrastructure projects in place which will ease congestion, and is now tracking all trucks with global positioning systems to measure how long they spend at the terminals.
Port Metro Vancouver and the British Columbia Trucking Association, which represents trucking companies, have alleged that truckers trying to get into port terminals during the work stoppage have been harassed and had their vehicles vandalized by members of the UTA.
Vancouver businesses have already begun to feel the effects of the work stoppage.
"The product's being piled up to the rafter in my warehouse, and my Chinese orders and my New Zealand orders, they're all being piled up," said Kari Yuers, CEO of Vancouver-based Kryton International Inc. "We can't even get the cans delivered, let alone taken to the port for shipping."
Truckers last went on strike in 2005 for 47 days. The dispute was ended after Vince Ready negotiated an agreement to raise trucking rates and an audit and enforcement system was put in place to ensure the trucking companies were paying those rates. Rates were last raised in 2006.
