ILWU Canada and its employers were still far apart when the contract expired March 31. The employers, the British Columbia Maritime Employers’ Assn. (BCMEA), had made 110 proposals, and many of them would change basic labor relations in Canada’s West Coast ports. Bargaining continues as we go to press.
The employers came to the table with what they called five targeted demands.

“One of the big ones is a change in the dispatch in Local 500,” ILWU Canada President Tom Dufresne said. “This is the Port of Vancouver, and that is where they want to [dispatch] over the internet or to a telephone system with voice recognition software.”

The union is trying to work with the employer to come up with a workable system that preserves the dispatch hall, Dufresne said. But other employer demands go to the heart of the union.

“There are demands the union can’t accede to because they would never get ratified by the members,” he said. “But other demands are just so unpalatable that we can’t even deal with them.”

 –Tom Price