Thank you for your question.
A collective agreement that is bargained allows the parties to deal with very substantive issues that may go beyond, let's say, wages and monetary items, and maybe the term of the collective agreement. For example, some of those substantive items that we are facing have to do with technological change, artificial intelligence, automation and contracting out of our work, which is continuing to occur on the waterfront.
If a dispute is referred to a third party to resolve, mediators are not well suited to delve into those very important substantive issues, beyond money and the term of collective agreement. We believe that these substantive issues will be left unresolved if the collective bargaining process is interrupted and handed to a third party. Our workers will be left without the ability to negotiate such things as the changes to our industry through automation and artificial intelligence.
