The employers are demanding major concessions. These include scheduling 10-hour workdays and six-day weeks and eliminating lifetime seniority. The union says this will lead to the elimination of 20 percent of the workforce.

The bosses are taking advantage of low grain volumes due to a drought on the Prairies to try to starve out the grain handlers. They have been shipping what grain there is through the port of Prince Rupert, hundreds of miles north of Vancouver. The 85 unionists in Prince Rupert have a separate contract, which expires in January.

Early in September unionists from Vancouver put up picket lines at the Prince Rupert terminal, stopping the flow of grain. Within two days, however, the companies got a court injunction barring picketing on the pretext that the terminal in Prince Rupert is a separate entity, although the same companies that operate the terminals in Vancouver own it.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned this injunction and pickets went up again at midnight on November 6. The companies immediately applied to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to have the picket action declared an illegal strike. The Board ruled that the union members in Prince Rupert would have to cross the line or face fines of $1,000 a day. In the face of this the union in Vancouver lifted the pickets after a few days.

Grain handlers on the picket line reacted angrily to the decision of the board. Glen Last, who has worked 23 years at the James Richardson terminal on Vancouver’s north shore, said the CIRB decision was "unfair and biased. They’re more company oriented than independent." He added, "It took 11 weeks to get a decision that there could be picketing and four days to undo it." Asked about the prospects for the union fight he replied, "Whatever it takes. It depends on how they play the game and how it hurts them. They want everyone working for $8 an hour."

Inder Parmar, who works at the Saskatchewan Pool terminal, commented, "We are in a bad position. The crops were not that good. But if we picket Prince Rupert, it might hurt them a little bit."

The contract for the 2,000 longshore workers in Vancouver, organized by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, (ILWU) expires at the end of the year.

Joe Young is a meat packer in Langley, British Columbia.  
 
 
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