Contract for west-coast stevedores provides a new SUB top-up for employees on maternity leave with the intention of making the traditionally male workplace more open to women.
Several family-friendly amendments form part of the British Columbia longshore agreement in this week’s issue.
“Making longshore workplaces more attractive as a place of employment is long overdue,” ILWU president Tom Dufresne claimed after the tentative agreement was ratified.
A tangible of this new attitude is the maternity leave top-up that has been added with this agreement. Employees who are receiving EI maternity leave benefits would see them topped up to 70 per cent of regular wages for 17 weeks and parental leave benefits topped up to 50 per cent of regular wages for 37 weeks.
The contract is also for eight years, prompting Dufresne to argue that collective bargaining is functioning properly in the sector. Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt asked the CIRB to look into the ports negotiation in November of 2010, arguing that negotiations were not being conducted by both sides with the intention of reaching an agreement.
Raitt also recently speculated that, if Air Canada flight attendants went on strike, not only would they be legislated back to work, but the Canada Labour Code would also be amended to make collective bargaining more effective.
Unfortunately, the minister neither explained how the Act would be amended nor why the current collective bargaining process at the federal level needs to be changed.
With the exception of the first year of two agreements, the six collective agreements summarized in the issue, all private sector ones, have wage increases in a total of 24 years.
