Feds walking difficult line with decision force foremen back to ports: experts

As more than 700 forepersons resume work at B.C. ports Thursday afternoon, experts say the federal government is walking a tightrope, trying to balance respecting unions while keeping the economy afloat.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon stepped in on Tuesday to get ports moving again after BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) locked workers out, directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the resumption of all operations and move talks to binding arbitration.

On Wednesday, the BCMEA said the board has issued an order for operations to resume at the province’s container terminals Thursday “and to continue operations and duties” until “a final determination” is made in the dispute.

University of the Fraser Valley Professor Emeritus Fiona McQuarrie says the minister’s move doesn’t bode well for future negotiations. She says parties may not engage in the bargaining process wholeheartedly if they know the feds will eventually step in.

“That can have some negative impacts, because the parties tend to be less able to settle the disputes themselves,” said McQuarrie.

“If the parties know that there’s a possibility that the dispute might be settled by binding arbitration, they might not take the actual bargaining part of it too seriously.”

But she says binding arbitration does allow the bargaining process to play out while also protecting Canada’s economy.

Mark Thompson, a professor emeritus at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, says the federal government has sidestepped issuing back-to-work legislation for recent labour disputes by handing them off to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 514 says it will be planning on legally challenging both the Canada Industrial Relations Board’s order to end the job action and the Minister’s forced arbitration.

Thompson says the union has grounds to challenge the intervention as “unconstitutional.”

“The Supreme Court [of Canada] has, in recent past, declared that collective bargaining and the right to strike are protected by the charter, but nobody’s quite sure what that means,” he said.

Thompson says those rights have yet to be tested in court.

Maintenance and operations are expected to resume on the 4:30 p.m shift Thurdsay.

A hearing has been scheduled by the CIRB for Monday, Nov. 18, to hear from both the employers and the workers.

—With files from Aastha Pandey-Kanaan, and The Canadian Press