FFAW is a strong voice for harvesters
When I read the first sentence of Gabe Gregory’s letter to the editor on April 18th (“DFO has an obligation to fishers”), I was anxious to read further.
After all, Gregory’s first line stated that the fishery “is in turmoil and I wish to inform the public as to the reasons why.” I was hoping to read a confession about how Gregory and some of his colleagues in the processing sector have worked tirelessly to undermine inshore fishers and how they are one of the primary causes of the difficulties fish harvesters currently face.
Alas, I was disappointed to see no confessions or mea culpas. I was not surprised. After all, for years I’ve sat across the negotiating table from Gregory and he has consistently refused to say who he represented in collective bargaining. For some reason, I don’t think he was there as a concerned citizen.
For someone who is selfdescribed as having “vast experience in this industry,” his letter displayed a vast misunderstanding of how the sector is structured.
The FFAW represents all inshore fish harvesters in the province. When DFO consults with harvesters, they are consulting with FFAW members. FFAW is engaged with DFO because FFAW is the democratically elected voice of all harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The structure of FFAW facilitates DFO’S consultation with fish harvesters. FFAW has an executive, an inshore council and scores of fleet and sector committees all over the province. There are hundreds of harvesters who actively volunteer for the FFAW and who serve as the voice and contact person for harvesters in their region.
Most importantly, all of these individuals are democratically elected by and accountable to other harvesters.
FFAW does not operate in secrecy; we work hard to transmit information to all of our members. But Gregory’s misunderstanding of the sector speaks to his and his employer’s long-term goal of undermining the strong position of harvesters in the inshore sector. Gregory thinks the FFAW should be confined to collective bargaining and that it should do nothing to fight for quota, to hold DFO accountable for policy decisions and science results, or to improve harvester safety.
In this sense, Gregory has much in common with FISHNL, which hopes to establish a bare-bones union that is focused solely on negotiating fish prices. This is a naïve position that ignores the strong connections between collective bargaining, quota and policy. Gregory envisions a fishery where companies can buy up quota in the name of harvesters and compel these harvesters to do as the company pleases, even after they’ve died. He wants a fishery where companies are active players in the market for licences, forcing individual harvesters to compete with the vast resources of the corporate world.
This has contributed to the huge debt loads that many harvesters are now carrying. Gregory does not like independent fish harvesters who can compel a good price and carry a strong voice to DFO. He seeks employees that will do his company’s bidding and be dismissed when they are no longer of use.
What is wrong with the fishery? It’s what Gregory recently sat in an Ottawa courtroom fighting for — the end of owner/ operator and fleet separation policies that form the backbone of an independent, inshore fishery. He wants a crab licence to cost $1.2 million and he wants fish harvesters to be unable to afford it. Because then he can keep it for his company.
Of course, harvesters get upset and frustrated when their expensive investments are degraded; processing companies have driven the economic stakes of the fishery into the stratosphere.
The companies have played a key role in creating this crisis, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to offer harvesters any reimbursement.
Robert Keenan Ffaw-unifor project manager St. John’s
FFAW is engaged with DFO because FFAW is the democratically elected voice of all harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador.