14 BCBusiness JUNE 2014
W
Y
B . C .' s n e W s a n d v i e W s
f r o M i n d u s t r y s e C t o r s
06/14
front
lınes
t r a n s p o r t a t i o n
I
t was the eleventh-hour deal Suzanne Wentt did not
expect: fl anked by Unifor union president Jerry Dias and
a dozen representatives of unionized and non-unionized
truckers, on March 26 Premier Christy Clark held a press
conference at the B.C. legislature to announce the end
of the month-long work stoppage that had paralyzed Lower
Mainland ports. Wentt, the owner of Indian River Transport
Co., whose trucks service the ports, had not been consulted;
nor, she says, had any of the dozens of other truckers she
knows. While the agreement addressed the truckers' most
egregious complaints about the pre-strike system—including
price cutting that led to unsustainably low pay rates—no one
is sure that it will solve a lingering complaint: long wait times
caused by congestion.
According to the agreement, the federal government "will
take appropriate measures" to increase the trip rates that
trucking companies pay owner operators by 12 per cent.
Rates for drivers paid by the hour will rise to $25.13 an hour,
and then $26.28 after one year. The provincial government
will enforce rates via an audit system.
Sorting out exactly who will be paying whom those
increased rates, however, is no simple task. Neither Port
Port Holes
After a bitter labour dispute—the third
in 15 years—the port and its truckers
have turned to the culprit: congestion
by Jacob Parry
PaUL JOSEPH
p14-21-Frontlines_june.indd 14 14-05-01 2:59 PM
