International Trade committee  It's Bill C-58. Yes, definitely. The 18-month delay after it receives royal assent shouldn't be there. It should be enacted immediately, to protect workers' rights. The other part of it is an absolute ban on scabs in the workplace. When an employer uses a scab, it tilts the scale

International Trade committee  We would understand completely that we wouldn't have to worry about our employers bringing in some worker to do our job to try to break us, to try to break the union, to try to break the employees' backs, to break our members' backs. This legislation probably means more to Canadi

International Trade committee  Yes, you bet. Pre-2010, we had a certain number of direct employers at the table, whether it was the board chair or a direct terminal operator. Somebody was at the table. If something came up that needed to be discussed about a terminal, that terminal representative would come.

International Trade committee  Quite simply, our rights would have been taken away. We wouldn't be able to freely negotiate a collective agreement for the terms and conditions that are appropriate for our industry. If that were to happen, you would see an absolute destruction of the relationship between the

International Trade committee  We were able to negotiate a fair wage increase when we looked at the interest rates that were going up and the inflation rates that were happening in the province. These inflation increases were not happening because of workers but because of other factors. One of the biggest t

International Trade committee  Good morning. Thank you, committee, for having me. My name is Rob Ashton, and I am the national president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union of Canada. I represent approximately 8,000 longshore workers on the west coast. The 2023 strike negotiations were doom

Transport committee  It's quite simple. I'm going to go back.... I don't mind picking on RBT2. It's my thing, I guess, now. When the concept of RBT2 first came up, if there had been a labour representative from my union on the port authority board, we could have explained the concerns we had—the dec

Transport committee  In a day-to-day working environment, right off the top of my head, I can't really see it. If you're looking for data from the member companies for the port authority to give to the Government of Canada, good luck. Why are the member companies that ship cargo and run the terminal

Transport committee  In a nutshell, the way the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority went about it and did it, ignored environmentalists and ignored community groups, it's a flawed system. It should not be built. If we had voice on the port authority board so we could have done it properly, definitely,

Transport committee  The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association represents our employer groups. They're separate from the port authorities in B.C. We have four port authorities in B.C. There should be only three, to be honest with you. My relationship with the biggest one has been really ba

Transport committee  I'll answer both of your statements there. Ken Georgetti has a great history in the labour movement. I'll never take that from him. He's done amazing things for the workers of this country and my home province of British Columbia. However, Ken Georgetti does not represent labour

Transport committee  I'm not going to get into the legalities of it. My members spoke loud and clear, and that's all that matters to me at the end of the day. My members said “no” because they wanted a freely negotiated collective agreement presented to them to vote on. That first one was voted down

Transport committee  If the language is clean, plain and written so that a layman like me could read it, then maybe all it needs is “this excludes labour relations”, “this excludes collective agreements”, “this protects our charter rights, and the government is going to stay out of collective bargain

Transport committee  I'm open to democracy, so if you want a chair, then make it an election. Let somebody like me put in for it, or let somebody who represents another part put in for an election to be a board chair, but it has to be that we're allowed to be on the board of directors.

Transport committee  Sure, if it's done properly, but adding two, three or, say, five more spots to a port authority board that are going to be picked by different levels of government doesn't open up public accountability, because the board of directors answers to nobody. However, if we had somebody