Tug boat picket lines dismantled as Seaspan offers workers new deal

Oct 16 2022, 7:16 pm

Picket lines that have been hampering movement of ships in the Burrard Inlet were dismantled Friday after Seaspan offered its striking tug boat workers a new deal.

Jessica Gares, external communications manager with Seaspan, told Daily Hive that it’s Reached a Memorandum of Settlement for its new collective agreement with the Canadian Merchant Service Guild. Union members will vote on the new deal in the coming days.

On Friday, picket lines came down at Pemberton Campus, the entrances to the Vancouver Drydock, and W Building sites — thus allowing marine transport workers to get moving again.

“Thank you to those who provided support during this difficult job action,” the union said in a statement.

Although only Seaspan workers were striking, other unionized workers in the Burrard inlet agreed not to cross their picket lines.

cruise ship stuck vancouver

The Celebrity Eclipse stuck in Vancouver harbour on August 29, 2022. (Sukhwant Dhillon/AM 600 Sher-E-Punjab Radio)

The strike led to unplanned delays this summer, including trapping the Celebrity Eclipse cruise ship in the Vancouver harbour for nearly 24 hours in August.

The Port of Vancouver said its operations were minimally impacted because the tug strike was limited to Seaspan facilities and equipment.

In fact, the Port is seeing faster transport times for goods this month. Its terminal dwell times (the amount of time a container spends at the terminal before being loaded onto a truck or train) decreased to 3.9 days in September — down from 6.6 days in July.

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