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A judge will hear a last ditch legal effort today from some container trucking companies who are resisting legislation that brought labour peace to Metro Vancouver’s ports in 2015.
“Some desperate companies will do anything to avoid compensating their workers fairly,” said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s BC Area Director. “There’s already a level playing field under the trucking regulations. This lawsuit is about pure corporate greed.”
The following companies have dragged the Container Trucking Commissioner and the BC government into court to fight fair wages:
- Aheer Transportation
- Bestlink Transport
- Burton Delivery Service
- Gantry Trucking
- Gur-ish Trucking
- Indian River Transport
- Roadstar Transport
- Sunlover Holding
- Triangle Transportation, and
- T S D Holding Inc.
The case is being heard at provincial courtroom 40 in downtown Vancouver. Unifor representatives are present as an “affected party” but are fighting for the higher rates and retroactivity set out in the Container Trucking Act to remain in effect for all affected truck drivers, unionized or not. Over $1M in compensation to truck drivers has already been levied by the new trucking commissioners since the law came into effect.
Container truckers shut down Port Metro Vancouver for nearly four weeks in March 2014 as a result of wage undercutting by trucking companies and long wait times at the Port. Truckers went back to work after a plan was signed with the truckers, the Port, the BC government, and the federal government.
Unifor says reversing course on the wages is a recipe for more chaos at the port, and recommends port trucking customers to do business with one of the dozens of companies that accept the new minimum rates established by the government.
Unifor is Canada’s largest union in the private sector, representing more than 310,000 workers. It was formed Labour Day weekend 2013 when the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions merged.
