VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The labor dispute at British Columbia ports is over after port workers voted on Friday to accept the tentative deal reached earlier this week.
A message posted Friday night on the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada website said that 74.66% of the union’s members had voted to accept the deal. Voting among the union’s 7,400 members had closed at 6 p.m. Friday.
Details of the agreement have yet to be reported, but the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association said in a statement that the agreement “includes increases in wages, benefits, and training that recognizes the skills and efforts of B.C.’s waterfront workforce, while providing certainty and stability for the future of Canada’s West Coast ports.”
The agreement came after a strike that closed BC ports July 1-13, and saw one tentative agreement rejected twice before a new deal was reached July 30. The CBC reports the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade estimates the strike disrupted C$10.7 billion in trade. Canadian National and CPKC both saw significant drops in traffic as a result of the port shutdowns.
A joint statement from Canadian Labor Minister Seamus O’Regan and Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez said O’Regan “has directed federal officials to review how a disruption on this scale unfolded, so that in the future we can provide greater stability for the workers and businesses across Canada that depend on our BC ports.”
