After several unsuccessful attempts at contract renewal, the Federal Labor Minister, Seamus O’Regan, gave the senior federal mediator 24 hours to submit recommended terms to end the B.C. port strike on July 11th.
The strike at the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert has now entered its 12th day, and vessel backlogs are building outside the ports causing costly delays in freight movement and overall disruption to the supply chain. On Monday, July 10th, 14 vessels were at anchor or dwelling outside of the Vancouver port.
Trans-Pacific carriers are changing schedule rotations so that US-bound cargoes can be unloaded in Seattle-Tacoma before the vessels head to the Canadian West Coast ports. The ILWU in the US announced last week that it will not work with Canadian-destined cargo in a show of support for ILWU Canada.
Longshoremen in Seattle and Tacoma must remove Canadian-destined containers first in order to access the US-bound boxes and then reload the Vancouver containers onto the vessels.
The situation remains fluid, please contact your local Expeditors representative for more information.
