A trucking dispute has finished lumber stacking up at Conifex Fibre Marketing Inc.’s sawmills in Fort St. James and Mackenzie as the company has no way of shipping it to export customers through Port Metro Vancouver, a company official said Wednesday.

Much of B.C.’s lumber exports to Asia is shipped in containers and, with more than 1,400 truck drivers on strike, Conifex is among the companies now blocked from shipping through Port Metro’s four container terminals.

Typically, Conifex exports 40 to 50 per cent of its production to Asia, but “we can’t ship our product offshore,” said Ryan Lepp, the company’s sales manager for North America.

Conifex is also among the companies searching for alternatives, such as diverting its export cargo to U.S. terminals in Seattle/Tacoma.

“There’s a lot of costs associated with this,” Lepp added. “Holding inventory at mills costs money and shipping from alternate locations costs money.”

The entire North American lumber supply chain is affected, according to Chris Sainas, president of the B.C. Wholesale Lumber Association, the organization that represents 28 wholesale lumber sellers.

CN Rail has told its forestry customers it is closing its major reloading and distribution centre in North Vancouver to new deliveries because of the buildup of export inventories and his members are running out of places to store lumber, Sainas said.

“We’re a fairly amiable group of people,” he added, and all segments of the supply chain are working with one another to make do with truck drivers off the job.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, fresh from signing a new free trade agreement with South Korea, had stern words for striking drivers.

“We’re obviously concerned about this particular labour dispute, because we have got to have major trade, transportation corridors operating,” Harper said during a friendly question-and-answer session in front of a business audience at a downtown Vancouver hotel.

“And it is not acceptable to have relatively small numbers of people blocking what is important trade for a range of British Columbian and Canadian business.”

Beyond that, Harper suggested the port strike is out of his hands, noting that the labour dispute falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government.

Paul Johal, president of the Vancouver Container Truckers’ Association, a branch of Unifor that represents the unionized port truckers, disagreed with the prime minister’s characterization.

“We’re not blocking anybody. We’re not stopping anybody. We’re just protesting outside the port,” Johal said. He said no negotiations had been scheduled, but the truckers are eager to resolve the dispute.

Johal represents some 400 unionized truck drivers who, along with more than 1,000 non-union drivers, have withdrawn services complaining of long waiting times and undercutting of per-shipment rates for hauling containers.

Federal Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt appointed veteran mediator Vince Ready to review the situation, but his initial back-to-work recommendations were rejected by drivers and he is not due to report back until May 30.

The Vancouver Container Truckers’ Association has been negotiating a new collective agreement since 2012. The primary issues are wages and compensation for the time drivers must wait at the port for their cargo.

Restoring service at the port is a priority and Transport Minister Todd Stone has been in touch with his federal counterpart, B.C.’s Transportation Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
 

Source: Vancouver Sun

Posted and edited by Hanbao News Department

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