B.C. tug and barge strike ends

VANCOUVER, (April 25, 2004 — Tugboat pilots and barge workers headed back to work yesterday to begin clearing thousands of containers piled up on shipping docks during the last week.

A deal was reached between the Council of Marine Carriers and the Canadian Merchant Service Guild representing 800 striking tug and barge workers. The eight-day strike froze shipping and freight transport along B.C.’s coast, and is said to have cost the Port of Vancouver over $100 million. About 80 per cent of coal traffic and two-thirds of the port’s container shipments were shut down at times.

With tugboats responsible for berthing container ships out of service, containers began piling up at the coast’s major terminals, and overloading already backlogged rail intermodal yards as well. By late last week, Canadian Pacific Rail had 39,000 feet of rail cars piled at its terminal, with thousands more cars arriving.

In-coming vessels were diverted to the Ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Portland, where some of the cargo was picked up and trucked back to Canada. Most of it, however, was being held until this weekend, in the hopes a settlement in the strike could be reached, Bob Simpson, president of major container hauler Team Transport Services of Richmond, B.C., told Today’s Trucking on Thursday.

The tugboats are also responsible for clearing fresh logs from the ocean, tow loads of wood chips to pulp mills, and move coal. If continued, the strike threatened a chain reaction that would have cripple the forestry industry.

The deal was reached Friday night, just after federal mediator Bill Lewis’ final recommendations to both parties. The agreement calls for annual wage hikes of three per cent over each of the three years of the contract as well as benefits equivalent to a 5.5 per cent wage increase, totalling 14.5 per cent.

The Guild was originally seeking a package of wage increases and health benefits totalling about 16 per cent over three years, while the Council of Marine Carriers was offering about 13.75 per cent.