Union and employers consider mediator’s deal that would end B.C. port strike

Both sides within the ongoing British Columbia port strike must determine in the present day whether or not to just accept phrases of a settlement advisable by a federal mediator that might finish the 13-day-old industrial motion.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada and the B.C. Maritime Employers Association got 24 hours to evaluate the suggestions ordered by federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, and determine if the deal is suitable.

About 7,400 employees have been on strike since July 1, halting shipments out and in of about 30 ports in B.C., together with Canada’s largest, the Port of Vancouver.

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade says there are 63,000 delivery containers caught on vessels ready at B.C. ports to be unloaded, and that quantity might balloon to 245,000 if the strike persists to the top of July.

O’Regan has mentioned the hole between the union and the employers’ affiliation is “not sufficient to justify a continued work stoppage.”

Western premiers who had been at a gathering of provincial and territorial leaders in Winnipeg this week had been unanimous that the dispute must be resolved.