ILWU Canada boss says ILA east coast talks to set west coast agenda

2012 03 20

Details

ALREADY tense US east coast labour-management set to start formally in the next two weeks will stand as a model for North American dockers, says Vancouver-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) president Tom Dufresne.

In an interview with London's Containerisation International, Mr Dufresne said his ILWU Canada was postponing plans to see what transpires in the US east coast negotiations with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and their employers group.

A harsh tone was set when ILA president Harold Daggett made it plain that a strike was not off the table and indicated that negotiations would be stormy over new technology and employers' efforts to cut the waterfront labour force by moving some work away from the docks.

Port of Vancouver CEO Robin Silvester is proud of last year's eight-year peace deal with the ILWU and feels certain the port would win cargo from shippers worried about east coast labour talks.

"We will win some cargo - some shippers switched away from us without a strike just while negotiations were going on here, in west coast Canada while we were negotiating the new contracts in 2010. Shippers now know we have stability here, while there is no stability in the US," he said.

But Mr Dufresne said: "If there's going to be greater automation, then we want to make sure that it is not going to be just a machine plus an outsourced job to someone other than a member of the ILWU. A lot is going to depend on east coast negotiations. This could set a pattern for North America. It could give us a blue print of what to do and what not to do."

Mr Dufresne said that the ILWU had started apprenticeship programmes along the west coast to help dockers learn new technology to keep their jobs, but the schemes have not been put into action, partly because the west coast union wants to see what happens in the east coast ILA talks.

Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
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