Skip to content

Four days of mediation fail to break four-month strike in the woods

Steelworkers union says Western Forest Products refuses to budge from ‘unreasonable concessions’
19041429_web1_191030-NIG-WFPstrike_2
United Steelworkers members on the picket line of the Western Forest Products facility at Menzies Bay, just north of Campbell River, on Aug. 26, 2019. Mirror File Photo

Talks between Western Forest Products (WFP) and the United Steel Workers Local 1-1937 (USW) have stalled once again.

The USW issued a three-page press release on how the talks went, stating that WFP “squandered an opportunity to reach a Collective Agreement… by refusing to move off its unreasonable, unwarranted and unacceptable concessions.”

According to the release, both parties met on Oct. 16, 18, 19, and 20, but progress was only made on issues “that had no cost implications for WFP.”

The North Island Gazette has reached out to WFP for comment on the negotiations and will update this story when the company responds.

Read the full press release from the USW below

19041429_web1_191030-NIG-WFPstrike_3
19041429_web1_191030-NIG-WFPstrike_4
19041429_web1_191030-NIG-WFPstrike_5


Tyson Whitney

About the Author: Tyson Whitney

I have been working in the community newspaper business for nearly a decade, all of those years with Black Press Media.
Read more