Truckers credit Christy Clark for resolving prolonged strike

Share

Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, travelled to Victoria last week with plans to escalate the four-week-old labour dispute at Port Metro Vancouver. The visit was a public display of brinksmanship. In the legislature, the B.C. government was fast-tracking a bill to force the truckers back to work. In response, Mr. Dias scheduled a Wednesday morning press conference in the B.C. capital to announce his members would defy the legislation.

Seven hours later, the threatened legislation was abandoned, Mr. Dias had a settlement in hand, and his jubilant members were cheering Premier Christy Clark for her role in settling a strike that she had insisted was not hers to fix.

The change in plans began to take shape when Mr. Dias retrieved his phone messages just after stepping off the plane. He'd been invited to sit down with key ministers in the B.C. government to forge a settlement.

But the groundwork had been laid months before.

The B.C. Liberals have earned a reputation for playing hardball with unions and Mr. Dias was skeptical about Ms. Clark, given her record on tough measures for public school teachers.

Over the past year, however, Ms. Clark has reached out to key B.C. labour leaders. The Premier and Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, have developed a surprisingly effective working relationship in recent months.

Those efforts paid off here – Mr. Dias was encouraged by backroom facilitators in the B.C. labour movement, including Mr. Sinclair, that a deal with Ms. Clark's government was possible.

Along with representatives for the non-union truckers, the Unifor negotiating team was ushered into a meeting led by Labour Minister Shirley Bond. "I knew at that point we would get a deal," Mr. Dias said in an interview this week.

His team appropriated a committee room in the legislature, where they spent the rest of the day until suppertime, as government officials and ministers shuttled back and forth, narrowing the gaps.

Mr. Dias stepped outside at one point to chat with reporters who camped out in the corridor, awaiting developments. "We are just too close," he told them.

The dispute began with about 1,200 non-union truckers who refused to work at the port starting on Feb. 26. Three hundred Unifor truckers later joined them, crippling the Port's operations – losses that amounted to $130-million each day.

But the federal and provincial governments disagreed about who was responsible for the dispute, and while the province could negotiate with a union, there was no simple model for bargaining with the non-union truckers.

Mr. Dias surprised Ms. Bond and her team, however, with a solution. The truckers had already agreed on terms for a settlement amongst themselves. Mr. Dias arrived in Victoria with a tentative agreement pre-approved by union and non-union truckers alike. "This was a curve ball that nobody in government expected," he said in an interview.

Ms. Bond commandeered the office next door to the truckers – the minister of environment's suite – to minimize the time spent shuttling back and forth. In a demonstration of good faith, her government held off on calling debate on the back-to-work bill.

Ms. Bond and Transportation Minister Todd Stone spent much of the day working on the deal, drawing on assistance from Finance Minister Mike de Jong, as well as cabinet ministers who had some inroads with the non-union truckers. It was a significant effort, considering that Ms. Clark had been adamant, that it was a federal problem that required a federal solution. "My advice to the federal government is this: Almost all of the elements of this dispute, which are licensing and rates, lie solely within federal jurisdiction," she told reporters during the third week of the dispute.

But it was Ms. Clark who was greeted with applause by truckers as she arrived to sign the agreement that would put the truckers back to work. "You shouldn't have to fight if you can get a deal," she said.

Meanwhile, the federal minister of transportation, Lisa Raitt, was nowhere to be seen. Ms. Raitt later issued a statement to acknowledge that getting the truckers back to work and having Canada's largest port fully open for business was a good thing.

Although the Prime Minister's Office was kept in the loop throughout the negotiations, Mr. Dias was blunt in crediting Ms. Clark for stepping in when Ottawa wouldn't engage.

"I think it is fair to say the provincial government was as frustrated as we were with the federal government," Mr. Dias said. The terms of the deal were laid out a week earlier, but Ottawa pulled the plug on it, he said, insisting that there could be no talks long as the truckers continued their job action.

"There is no question that Christy Clark's reputation was that she was not friendly to labour," Mr. Dias said. "But you can be tough to the point of being stupid." And Ms. Clark's government went for a resolution instead. Meanwhile it is Ottawa, he said, that must bear responsibility for a strike that lasted a week longer than it needed to. "It was a $900-million screw up."

Justine Hunter is The Globe's B.C. legislature reporter in Victoria.