VANCOUVER — The Port of Vancouver has the legal authority to continue enforcing a mandatory container truck licensing system for drayage firms, the Federal Court of Canada has ruled.

The Court’s decision means that the VPA can continue its licensing system and reinforces its jurisdiction to settle disputes, including rate-cutting allegations.

Drayage firms must continue to pay drivers according
to the Ready licence system, a federal court says

The so-called “Ready” licensing provision — first established by government mediator Vince Ready to bring an end to the crippling, six-week trucker strike at the port last summer — requires carrier companies to pay contracted independent truckers a set haulage rate and applicable fuel surcharges, among other provisions.

The controversial licensing scheme was legislatively backed by the federal government through repeated Orders-in-Council until this past April when David Emerson, federal Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway, declined to extend the Order one last time and instead transferred the power to maintain the program to the Port Authority.

Most carriers begrudgingly signed on to the program as a requirement to work the ports. However, a small handful continued to resist and when the VPA took over responsibility of the licensing plan, two carriers — Pro West Transport Ltd. and Team Transport Services — quickly challenged the port’s authority to enforce Ready’s regulated rate system.

However, Justice Teitelbaum sided with the feds and the VPA, saying that the licensing system established during the original 90-day period covered by the Order in Council continues to be valid even now that the Order has expired.

“Clearly this is a victory for communities, retailers, businesses and families who depend on the port,” said Chris Badger, the VPA’s vice-president of customer development and operations.

The VPA says the court ruling complements the Strategic
Trucking Initiative to improve operations at port facilities

Badger said the decision complements the Strategic Trucking Initiative, which includes extended hours of operation at container terminal truck gates; a new reservation system; and truck safety improvements.

Although a victory by the opposing carriers could have technically brought down the licence system, it’s unlikely those firms would have escaped a new pay rate system with owner-ops for much longer anyway.

As Today’s Trucking first reported in an exclusive article in May, (follow “Peace at the Port?” link below for complete story), behind the the licensing system is a growing movement to unionize many of the port truckers.

An increasing number of drayage firms are signing collective bargaining agreements with the Canadian Auto Workers union, which now represents most of the 1,200 independent truckers that walked off the job last summer.

Stu Shields, national representative of the Canadian Auto Workers, told Today’s Trucking recently that one of the two carriers challenging the Ready provisions was also on the verge of having its owner-op pool certified with CAW.

“So (the challenge) is moot because the company would have to barter an agreement with us. Once you bargain a collective agreement, the Ready recommendations are history,” says Shields. “And as (the carrier) well knows, we’re certainly not bargaining anything less than the Ready memorandum.”

Coleman Tokie of KTL Transport — one of the larger Vancouver drayage firms with 76 owner-ops — says his company’s new agreement with the CAW can hopefully bring an end to the labor battles — at least as far as he’s concerned.

“I think the CAW showed tremendous good faith by extending what are essentially the Vince Ready rates, with no additional increases, which we needed to tell the market and our partners that we have a long-term solution for the sector and that we won’t have any further problems over here,” he said in an interview.