Plant workers caught in middle of crab dispute
Union says government must intervene to avert another crab fishery delay
CORNER BROOK — There’s no shortage of unrest in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery, but it’s the uncertainty that concerns Doretta Strickland the most.
Strickland has worked at the Ocean Choice International fish plant in Triton for 40 years. She now serves as both president of the Ffawunifor local and vice-president of the union’s industrial retail offshore council.
Like every plant worker and fish harvester in the province, she is anxious about whether or not the 2024 snow crab season is going to start or not.
The season is scheduled to commence in most parts of Newfoundland and Labrador on Saturday, April 6, but all indications are harvesters won’t be going fishing for the pricing formula decided on by the province’s Standing Fish Price-setting Panel.
The panel selected the formula proposed by the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP), which sets the minimum price to be paid for crab at $2.60 per pound, although that price can be higher if the markets dictate.
The panel’s decision to accept the ASP’S price offer a year ago led to a six-week delay in the start of the crab fishery as harvesters refused to go to sea for the floor price of $2.20.
The delay had a ripple effect through the industry as plant workers lost work at the beginning of the season and fisheries for other species were pushed back.
This caused issues for plant workers trying to get enough weeks and hours to qualify for full employment insurance benefits.
Strickland said some workers in her community ran out of benefits a month ago and more are finding themselves in the same situation as each week goes by.
“There’s nothing, only worry,” Strickland told Saltwire. “Everywhere you look, there’s worry. (The cost of) everything is going up and if we don’t start the fishery soon … I don’t know.”
‘NO FAULT OF OURS
The equation is simple enough: plant workers can’t go to work until the harvesters go fishing.
“We’re in a terrible situation,” said Strickland. “Really, it’s no fault of plant workers, but I understand the fish harvesters got to do what they got to do.
“We’re all worried because we don’t know how long it’s going to last. … I don’t know if we’re going to survive if nothing is done.”
She said it’s unfortunate that plant workers are caught in the middle of a dispute between harvesters and processors.
“It’s no fault of ours, but, then again, we can’t be against fish harvesters either for doing what they have to do to survive,” she said. “We have to stick together, but sometimes it’s hard to do that.”
Strickland fears there is a bigger-picture effort to eliminate the need for small boat fish harvesters and plants, in favour of having more seafood caught and processed at sea by large factory freezer trawlers.
“That don’t matter right now because the fact of the matter is we’re here today and we’re all worrying,” she said. “We’ve got to worry. We’ve got families. We’ve got bills.
“If we don’t get back to work, there’s people going without money and you can’t go without money for very long.”
‘EXPECTING IT TO RISE’
The ASP’S executive director says the formula it presented to the price-setting panel was designed “in the spirit of getting the fishery going.”
Jeff Loder emphasized that the $2.60 price is a minimum and the formula provides harvesters the opportunity to take between a 54-57 per cent share of the market price when crab prices range from $7.40 to $12 per pound.
“We don’t know where (the market price) is going to be when new snow crab comes on,” said Loder. “It could easily rise and we’re expecting it to rise up into that $6 (US) range or perhaps above. When that happens, you’re talking about a $3 payment to the harvester.
“If you consider the difference in the quality, size and other characteristics of crab in Newfoundland versus outside in the Gulf, we’re basically at the exact same price of $3 (being paid) there when we get to that $6, which we’re hopeful will happen very quickly.”
‘IT DIDN’T WORK’
The union representing fish harvesters and plant workers says the ASP formula that was selected did the exact opposite of facilitating a timely start to the fishery.
Greg Pretty, FFAW-unifor’s president, noted the union proposal was based on the formula recommended by the Blackwood Report, created by the provincial government-appointed commission chaired by Glenn Blackwood to look into last year’s delayed crab fishery.
Pretty said the formula submitted by the union to the panel outlined the historic pattern of market prices like Blackwood did and contained only “minor tweaks” to what the report had recommended.
“They were completely ignored for a formula (the ASP) just tacked together supposedly to get a fishery started,” Pretty told Saltwire in an interview. “Well, it didn’t work.”
What happens now is the question.
Pretty said the provincial government, which helped broker the deal that got the 2023 crab fishery going, needs to step in to prevent another delay to the season.
“I think what the province has to do here is intervene, inasmuch as we believe the Blackwood Report has value not only for harvesters, but for our communities and the province,” he said. “To just toss that aside for some wacko formula that has no bearing on the market is really an insult to our members.”
Loder said the union’s offer picked and chose favourable elements of the Blackwood formula without considering all of the associated variables that needed to come along with it.
“There was a lot of selective use of what was in the Blackwood Report,” said Loder. “I understand the position of the union, but they did not put in the Blackwood formula per se.”
WHAT NOW?
The union held a meeting with its more than 40 crab committee chairs from all across the province on Tuesday, April 2. During that meeting, the union was told harvesters could not fish in accordance with the formula selected by the panel.
“Crab harvesters fully understand the importance of their business to their families and their communities,” Pretty stated in a news release issued after the meeting.
“This injustice must be corrected, and we expect that harvesters will support leadership’s position to not fish.”
In March, harvesters demanding more free enterprise in the fishery held demonstrations in St. John’s that led to a delay in the bringing down of the provincial budget. That movement was led by harvester John Efford Jr., who continues to be on the front lines of the effort to make changes to the fishery.
In reaction to the panel decision and meetings with union leadership, Efford made a social media post that seemed to be a rallying cry for harvesters to boycott the crab fishery once again unless the issue of the pricing formula is addressed. The panel decision was an attack on free enterprise, said Efford.
“How will we defend it? We will not fish there will be no fishing there will be no fish moving there will be no fish processed,” he wrote. “We may have to amass in the largest group of fish harvesters that has ever been seen.
“Stand by and be ready to protect.”