OTTAWA: Maritime employers in Canada's British Columbia locked out more than 730 dock foremen across the country's west coast ports, including the largest port, Vancouver, in a labour dispute.
The British Columbia (BC) Maritime Employers Association said on Monday that its plan to lock out workers was meant to "facilitate a safe and orderly wind-down of operations" in light of escalating and unpredictable strike action.
Last week, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 issued a 72-hour strike notice for job action, which was due to start at 8 am PT (1300 GMT) on Monday. The union's main task was said to protect jobs from automation.
The lockout began at 4:30 pm PT (2130 GMT) and will remain until further notice, the B C Maritime Employers Association said in a news release.
In a joint written statement, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen on Monday called on the federal government to take whatever steps are necessary to maintain critical port operations and urgently intervene with binding arbitration in future disputes, Xinhua news agency reported.
"Alberta is a landlocked province that relies on the safe, dependable movement of goods to and from west coast ports. These ports export about 50 million Canadian dollars ($36 million) worth of Alberta's key commodities every day including agricultural, energy and manufacturing-related products, " the statement said.
"A prolonged work stoppage will disrupt the movement of these products, backlog other transportation networks such as rail and trucking and damage the economies of Alberta and Canada, " it said.
Bridgitte Anderson, CEO and president of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, said 800 million Canadian dollars ($576 million) in trade flows through West Coast ports every day.
"This could have disruptions right across our industries, right across our sectors, and in fact right across the whole Canadian economy, " she was quoted by local media on Sunday.
In a statement on social media, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said federal mediators are on site, ready to assist the parties.
"It is the responsibility of the parties to reach an agreement. Businesses, workers, and farmers are counting on them to get a deal, " he said.
This work stoppage followed the 13-day strike from more than 7, 400 longshoremen at the B.C. ports in July 2023, which disrupted the flow of goods into Canada, resulting in 10.7 billion Canadian dollars ($7.7 million) worth of cargo being held up and diverted elsewhere.
Currently, an indefinite strike since Thursday morning at two container terminals at the Port of Montreal on Canada's East Coast is slowing down the processing of 40 per cent of the containers delivered to the port.