British Colombia’s dockers and maritime employers voting on new tentative deal

The month-long, rollercoaster labor conflict at British Columbia’s ports could be finally ending within a few days. Resolution is on the horizon following a late-night breakthrough on Sunday announcing a new tentative collective agreement between the union representing 7,400 dockers and maritime employers.

This third attempt could finally produce what has been an elusive resolution in a dispute that has especially hit cargo operations at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, major gateways in Canada’s foreign trade. A docker strike between July 1 and July 13 prevented the movement of billions of dollars of containerized goods and bulk products.

In a joint statement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada and the BC Maritime Employers Association said the new deal was reached with the assistance of the Canada Industrial Relations Board. No details were released. Both sides recommended to their members to ratify it. The ratification process could potentially be completed by the end of this week.
Before the new agreement was announced, union president Rob Ashton said in a letter Sunday that workers looked "forward to resuming discussions and finding common ground for the betterment of the Canadian supply chain and the livelihoods of its workforce."

He identified “contracting out maintenance work” as “a critical issue.”
Ashton said that while the deal voted down last Friday included "progress … in addressing certain workforce-related matters," it did not provide protection for port workers as more maintenance work gets contracted out to third parties.

Thus, presumably, the proposed new deal addresses the maintenance work issue in some form.
The previously rejected contract included a compounded wage increase of 19.2 % and a signing bonus amounting to about $3,000 per full-time worker. The end result would have "potentially" boosted a union longshore worker's median annual wage from $136,000 to $162,000, not including pension and benefits.
In a statement Saturday, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan Jr. had stressed that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's July 19 decision to meet with the incident response group showed "the government is prepared for all options and eventualities."

It was clear this would include imposed arbitration through back-to-work legislation – as happened during a Port of Montreal labor conflict in 2021.
"The state of uncertainty cannot continue," Mr. O'Regan had said. "While our B.C. ports are operating right now, we need long-term stability for the many workers and businesses that depend on them."