February 2, 1994 48 pages

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STRIKING LONGSHOREMEN Rinaldo Mini, Doug McAndiess and Don Ewen take their cause to the street at Lynnterm

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Vancouver waterfront. The labor dispute shut down the port on Friday.

Vancouver Opera.

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NEWS phoio Nell Lucente

on the North

Waterfront shutdown hits North Shore tugboat, bulk terminal operations

A5 PICKET lines go, it isn’t
much — just two guys
munching sunflower seeds
with their picket sign resting
against a folding lawn chair.
But it's enough to shut down
North Vancouver's Lynnterm
docks.

. By Douglas Broome
. Contributing Writer

The two picketers wave through
a couple of young Russians visiting
a ship from their motherland, but
another van carrying paint for a
ship is turned back.

Four ships are berthed at the
dock. One vessel still has its cargo
of stee! rails to unload: the others

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wait to load with generat cargo,
lumber and pulp. exports that make
B.C.’s economy tick aver.

As the longshoremen’s strike
keeps B.C. ports shut down for :
sixth day, the repercussions are
beginning to be felt throughout the
B.C, economy.

Usually there's a hundred people
working at Lynnterm. Today, it’s
almost empty.

In the BC Rail traffic control
office. Gordie Lowat is finding
spaces to store loaded rail cars.

The cargo is backing up, but he
tries ta keep the cars as clase to
their destinations as possible.
Squamish is a favored site, bu
space is filling up rapidly.

“It's been a frenzy” for the first
couple of days. says BC Rail

calm has now returned to the traffic
office.

Some rail customers have been
able to divert their shipments, cither
to the east or to Bellingham, and
Seattle, Washington, aad ta
Portland, Oregon, using the
Burlington Northern lines, she says.

BC Rail train traffic has been cut
from 2.7 a day to two a day.

Seattle part spokesman Cathy
Keck says four ships were diverted
to Seattle in the first three days of
the strike.

Jim O'Mara, vice-presideat of
the Vancouver Port Corp... says
ships are backing up. and towns
like Ganges on Salispring Isfand are
now providing anchorage for
ocean-going vessels. He says the
loss of 5.000 containers of traffie

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Canadian economy.

Vancouver and Seattle have
equivalent labor costs, O° Hara says.
but Vancouver is a more productive
and competitive port.

However, justified or not.
Vancouver is gaining a reputation
for labor difficulties.

“People throw it in your face
when you go overseas.” says John
Hodge. vice-president of Montreal
Shipping. “Shippers dont like to
have their schedules dislocated.”

The strike. the first waterfront
work stoppage since 1986, involves
1.375 Vancouver port workers,
according to Bob Wilds, president
of the B.C. Maritime Employers”
Association,

“We've been trying fo bargain
for $4 months now and we haven't
given up the hope for a negotiated

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ORTH SHORE SINC

settlement.”

The cost of an idle ship is
between $25,000 and $35,000 a
day, Wilds says.

Alissue in the dispute is money.

The current base rate for long-
shoremen is $21.41 an hour. The
employers’ association has offered
a $1.80 hourly increase spread over
three years and a 23-cent an hour
benefits package improvement.
The union wants a $2.75 raise in a
three-year contract with a benefits
improvement worth 28 cents per
hour.

Doug Towill oof | North
Vancouver-based C.F. Cates and
Sons says the strike is having a dev-
astating impact on the ship-towing
company. Cates, he says, may have
io day off many of its 85 employees
if the strike continues.

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