Apparently the Canada Industrial Relations Board found this strike illegal because 72 hours strike notice wasn’t given. However that seems strange because it’s not a new strike, it’s the previous strike resuming after a potential agreement was voted down. Regardless, don’t expect this to be the end of things.
Here’s a statement from ILWU on the situation.
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Exactly. This is bullshit and there’s no way it will stand to appeal based on current law.
The problem is they are skirting dangerously close to the government forcing them back to work. This way, they can show they are making good faith efforts to make a deal, and hopefully keep the public on their side.
It would actually be best if they called it a new strike in my opinion. The union will be able to say their members want them to continue negotiating, and if that fails, then call a new strike. It will show they are trying to deal in good faith, but the BCMEA isn’t.
The Ontario government passed a law to make CUPE’s strike last fall illegal with a penalty of 10K a day for any participant. CUPE came out anyways along with support from other unions and the government didn’t do shit. IMO this is the way forward. Solidarity from other unions and large strikes in the face of back-to-work legislation. The alternative is wage freezes for a decade it seems.
Exactly, people forget that striking at all used to be illegal, and the right to strike was won because people did it anyway, illegally.
Forget? I had no idea. You, we have to keep educating people as needed. These seemingly obvious historical facts are anything but obvious, especially to newcomers from different economic systems like the ones from the ex-soc bloc that think the Western world’s working class had it better due to the lack of “communism”. Or from the ones where labor never commanded a premium of the added value who just believe that this capitalism is magically better than the one they’ve seen. Or natural born Canadians that don’t know why they have the things they have.
I fully support the striking ILWU members on this and I hope they win the appeal and get a fair contract.
Wow, BCMEA doing everything they can to destroy labour relations in Canada.
