As crab fishery protest enters fourth week, N.L. minister asks union for secret vote
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. –
Newfoundland and Labrador’s fisheries minister has waded right into a standoff within the province’s snow crab fishery by asking the harvesters union to carry a secret vote about whether or not a piece stoppage ought to proceed.
Derrick Bragg wrote to the president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union Wednesday and requested {that a} secret poll be held asking every crab harvester if they’re “ready and willing to go fishing now” at present costs. Harvesters from the province have refused to fish this season, saying they can not make a residing off the $2.20 per pound value set early final month.
“I am aware that many harvesters are expressing frustration that they want to go fishing but fear retribution from other harvesters,” Bragg wrote. “They are very concerned that the season will be lost to them.”
The snow crab fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador opened in most fishing areas on April 10, however harvesters have stored their boats tied as much as protest this 12 months’s value on the wharf. Last season, costs opened at $7.60 a pound.
Prices are set by a government-appointed panel that hears arguments from the FFAW and the Association of Seafood Producers, which represents fish-processing corporations. Industry consultants say the worldwide snow crab market has plummeted after record-high costs in the course of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that many sellers are nonetheless attempting to unload product from final 12 months’s catch.
The fishers union says that with wharf costs at $2.20 a pound, processors are asking harvesters to bear the brunt of the market fallout.
In his letter, Bragg famous that fishers in different provinces are out harvesting crab for costs that are not a lot increased. Harvesters in Nova Scotia have been fishing for $2.25 a pound.
The FFAW stated Bragg’s letter is basically asking for an unlawful strike vote, including that it undermines the union’s management.
“Minister Bragg is directly undermining the elected leadership of the union, and it’s clear he has absolutely no handle on the crisis facing this industry, let alone the basic laws governing his portfolio,” Greg Pretty, the union’s president, stated in a news launch Wednesday night time.
Members of the FFAW (Fish, Food and Allied Workers) and their supporters rally on the Confederation Building in St. John’s, Monday, April 17, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly
Hundreds of harvesters rallied on the provincial legislature on April 17, demanding that Bragg intervene and pressure the pricing panel again to negotiations.
“Instead of stepping in as a provincial regulator to change the flawed price-setting process, Minister Bragg continues to be a spectator,” Pretty stated Wednesday.
Snow crab is Newfoundland and Labrador’s most beneficial seafood export, accounting for greater than half — $883 million — of the $1.6 billion generated by the province’s fisheries in 2021.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed May 4, 2023.
