We understand that the recent collapse of talks has been a source of frustration and concern for many within our community. Given the significance of this moment, we feel it is important to share our perspective and engage in an open dialogue. Below, you will find our open letter to the community, offering insight into our position and thoughts during this challenging time.
Dear Neighbours and Friends,
We are the elected bargaining committee for workers at Western Pacific Marine (WPM). We live in your community, and we are your neighbours and friends. We know how important these ferries are because our families rely on them too.
Recently, WPM has been bending the truth about bargaining, and we want to speak directly to you to set the record straight.
WPM says that we are delaying bargaining and holding out for the summer tourist season.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Our bargaining started in May of 2024. From our union’s experience, meeting in person leads to faster, more productive bargaining, but WPM has refused to come to the Kootenays, preferring to meet over Zoom. We’ve even traveled to Nanaimo and Vancouver because they won’t come out here.
Over the past month, we have been ready to meet every day, for up to 10 hours a day. Many times, WPM has canceled, delayed, rescheduled, postponed, or had last-minute family obligations. At one point, they changed their negotiator. Talks improved with the new negotiator, but it took weeks to get him up to speed. As a result, we’ve been incredibly frustrated by their refusals to meet, and to blame the union for delays is outrageous. They know that they haven’t been cooperative, so they’re trying to shift the blame.
Despite all the delays, on the evening of March 5th, the parties reached a framework for a deal. WPM’s committee went to Graham Clarke for final approval. Mr. Clarke responded with a counteroffer that was completely out of line with what the negotiating committees had been working on.
We’ve been outdoors on the picket line, suffering tremendous loss of pay throughout the entire winter. Why would we want this strike to go one day longer than it has to?
If this strike drags on, we’re concerned that other ferry operators will poach vital staff and make our staffing challenges worse.
WPM says that our staff earn the same amount as BC Ferries workers and uses a captain as an example.
Our lead officers do earn a similar amount as certain BC Ferries officers, like Captains, Chief Engineers, and Mates, but the ships that WPM is comparing them to are significantly smaller and have less propulsion than the Osprey 2000 – they carry under 50 vehicles, while the Osprey carries 80. When comparing it to a ship that’s actually of similar size, our officers do indeed make less. We are having trouble retaining Captains and Chief Engineers, and other companies in the industry have employed signing bonuses as a way of poaching employees or retaining staff. If we don’t keep wages competitive here, we won’t have anyone to sail our ships. WPM is already flying in captains from the coast for a few days and paying for their lodging to fill the gaps. If we fall further behind, we’ll face even more challenges keeping senior officers, and the situation could get worse if this continues.
All these positions—Captains, Engineers, Mates, Deckhands, Engine Room Assistants, and more—are all essential under Transport Canada regulations to sail a ship, and they all need special certifications. If we’re short any staff for even a single run, our ship can’t sail.
And all of those workers make less than both WaterBridge Ferries and BC Ferries employees. Plus, BC Ferries staff are just about to enter negotiations where they’re expected to win big wage increases, so we’ll be even further behind in just a few months' time.
WPM is playing games by spreading inaccurate information about our wages to pit us against our neighbours, but they don’t really care about our local communities. They just want to improve their bottom line.
WPM says they’ve been fair with their wage offers.
When we sat down to bargain, everyone knew that higher wages were needed to recruit staff and keep ferries running for our community. WPM offered significant wage increases in October while we were still working on shift patterns and a number of other collective agreement terms.
Wage discussions have been fairly consistent until March 10, when they cut the increases they were offering by more than 60%, saying that they had run new financial numbers and couldn’t pay more.
In addition to these cuts, their recent wage offer is 3% per year for the next five years—just 3% across the board, every year, for the next five years. When you compare this to other ferry operators in the region, including WaterBridge Ferries and BC Ferries, it becomes clear that this offer is nowhere near competitive. Our staff deserve wages that reflect the cost of living and the vital service they provide, but WPM’s offer falls far short.
In our opinion, this action is clear-cut “bargaining in bad faith.” They are deliberately delaying reaching an agreement.
WPM claims that our union is delaying matters, but even without the charges, these cuts in proposals have wasted six months of bargaining time!
WPM says that we won’t be reasonable and account for the increased cost of the day-for-day schedule.
From the start of bargaining, we have said that switching to a day-for-day schedule is a vital part of a safe and reliable service, and we’d adjust our wage proposals downward if it would cost more.
WPM said that it was more costly, but for months they wouldn’t share how they figured that. When they finally did, we found errors in their numbers, and together we found that the costs were only slightly higher. At that point, we reduced our wage proposals to match the increased costs.
Last week, they left the table to bring the offer that both sides developed to their owner, Graham Clarke. On Monday March 10th, they returned, and their owner Clarke claimed that new calculations—done without us—showed that the day-for-day schedule is much more costly, so wages need to go down even more.
We have asked to see their new audit, but they have refused. They also refuse to reveal their service contract with the government. If they are as committed to getting a deal, why are they refusing to share the financial information that would prove their point?
Given their faulty numbers in the past, you can imagine we won’t just take their word at face value! They need to show us their calculations before we can respond to their reduced wage offer. We want to know what’s different from the numbers we worked on together.
WPM says we are refusing to meet with an arbitrator because we want to delay.
We aren’t ready to meet with an arbitrator at this moment because our trust with WPM has been broken, and we don’t believe that the story they would bring to the arbitrator will be honest. We suspect that the reduction in their wage offer is a tactic designed to come out of arbitration paying less to their staff.
We believe that their conduct in the past week has been in violation of the BC Labour Relations Code (the “Code”), We are considering our options to address this issue. In addition, the Employer has no right at law to insist on settling the collective bargaining dispute through binding interest arbitration. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Code protect the rights of employees in this province to achieve collective agreements through free collective bargaining, not interest arbitration. The parties can voluntarily agree to put their respective bargaining positions to an arbitrator and let the arbitrator decide the terms of the new collective agreement. If the parties agree to this, they agree that the arbitrator’s decision is final and binding. The Union is weighing whether it is in the best interests of its members to engage in binding interest arbitration.
WPM claims they are “dedicated to [..] ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently.”
Sure. They want to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently—to line their pocketbooks. Their owner and parent company has been acquiring new marinas and other maritime assets, while they nickel-and-dime their workers here in the Kootenays.
B.C.’s other inland ferry operators are all able to meet the industry standard wages that WPM refuses to pay while also operating on a day-for-day schedule. Why can’t WPM, a much larger and more sophisticated diversified company, do the same?
These ferries are vital public services for our community, and it’s time the government took a hard look at whether WPM is fulfilling its requirements. To truly ensure that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently, the government needs to rein in contractors like WPM who are seeking to make huge profits off of our taxes.
If WPM can’t provide a sustainable service while paying wages that will fully staff the ferry routes, it’s time for the government to ditch WPM and open their contract up to new bidders.
Throughout the last year, we have stuck firm to doing what’s needed to make sure that these ferries are here to serve for years to come. Sometimes that has meant taking action that has inconvenienced many of our neighbours, and we are incredibly frustrated that it came to that point.
WPM has claimed that they care about our community. But they don’t live here; we do. They don’t even want to come here to have face-to-face talks with their own workers. At the end of the day, we are concerned that they’re simply seeking to extract as much profit as they can from their government contract so their owner can buy another marina.
Our community deserves better than that.
In Solidarity,
BCGEU Bargaining Committee