Six Weeks In: Trigon Longshore Strike Grinds On at Prince Rupert Port

Six weeks after longshore workers walked off the job, the strike at Trigon Pacific Terminals on Ridley Island is no closer to the bargaining table — and a run of federal labour-board rulings has gone the union’s way, one after another.

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 523 walked out on Oct. 2 at the bulk terminal, which ships coal and petroleum coke to overseas markets and employs about 150 people, most of them Local 523 members. The union says its members are seeking fair compensation and benefits and want their bargaining-unit work protected. Specific wage figures and bargaining positions have not been made public.

The dispute has been shaped less at the table than at the Canada Industrial Relations Board. On Oct. 20, the board declared the strike lawful and dismissed Trigon’s complaint that the union had bargained in bad faith, Northern Sentinel reported. A week later, on Oct. 27, the board ordered Trigon to stop using contractors to perform striking workers’ jobs — specifically liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) rail-car work normally done by unionized employees — after finding the company had “acquiesced and benefited” when contractors used Trigon’s own tracks and locomotive, The Northern View reported. The order holds for the length of the dispute.

That ruling reached past the two sides. AltaGas, which ships Canadian propane through the Ridley Island Propane Export Terminal and is not a party to the dispute, said the order affects its ability to move product reliably and warned of consequences “across the energy industry,” adding that it disagreed with the decision and was weighing its legal options.

In early November, the dispute drew in the province’s largest labour body. On Nov. 2 the BC Federation of Labour issued a “hot edict” on coal, petcoke and LPG moving through the Trigon terminal — a call on affiliated unions and their members not to handle the named goods until the dispute is resolved — in support of Local 523, as the strike stretched into its second month, CFNR Network and The Northern View reported.

“Trigon has been using every trick in the book to avoid bargaining,” BCFED President Sussanne Skidmore said in the Federation’s release. ILWU Canada President Tom Doran said the company’s “only motivations are profit and control.”

Trigon has said it is reviewing the board’s decisions before deciding its next steps, and CEO Craig Olley has said that “Trigon remains available to resume good faith collective bargaining.”

For a port city where terminal work anchors paycheques, the math is simple and unforgiving: the strike began Oct 2, it is now in its sixth week, and no settlement is in sight. The labour board has set the terms of the standoff. What it has not done is end it. That still has to happen at the bargaining table.