Dear Mr. President:
As you may have heard, 24 hours after CETA was approved in Spain & meetings with Unions, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party withdrew its’ support for CETA, greatly imperilling its’ chances of ever coming fully into force.
110 M.P.s of the French Parliament have asked the French Constitutional Court for an opinion on CETA, which is due mere months from now, on its’ Constitutionality ( for example, on equality of France’s citizens before the Courts, where CETA’s C.D.S. mechanism is concerned).
It looks less likely that CETA will enter into Provisional Application by 1/7/17, Canada Day.
Along with a Referendum in Holland on it, CETA is likely to succumb to any of the increasing numbers of successive challenges to it in Europe and elsewhere, which could see it withdrawn either shortly or within a year.
Considering what looks like perhaps the worst series of employment Contract offers in over 50 years and since the last major Strike by Canadian sailors in 1966, this has been likely due to CETA .
Maritime Cabotage Rights to all Canadian Ports given to low wage European ships through Article 14-3.2 and the temporary suspension of most (which may be intended to lead one to believe that these maritime Cabotage Rights are mostly limited to the Montreal-Halifax Corridor) by Reservation II-C-14, whose withdrawal (without need of any Parliamentary oversight) would restore those Rights, may be intended to cause seafarers to accept any shipping company’s initial Employment Contract offer for fear of triggering Reservation II-C-14s’ removal and cause the disappearance of Canadian merchant ships and crews, through allowing low wage ships to flood the Canadian market.
Long foreknowledge of the Liberal government’s intent to reintroduce CETA has likely led to the present state of disastrous employment Contract offers from Canadian shipowners ( re World Shipping News, May, 2016) & that CETA would be in provisional application by 1/4/17.
Therefore, that employment Contracts for unlicensed seafarers’ with Canadas’ 3 largest Maritime Shipping companies would be due to be renewed soon afterwards is likely no accident.
For the continued safe conduct of affairs of the Canadian Maritime Shipping Industry, Members and Canadian seafarers generally, no long term seafarer employment contracts should be entered into until the likelihood of CETAs’ future existence has been ascertained.
As you stated to Members in Montreal at the beginning of your Mandate, the Union was not then in an optimal financial state to withstand a strike, even though it’s been over 50 years since the last and likely only major one in Canadian history, that there is no taste on the part of Canadian seafarers for it and that ship-owners will likely be adversely affected should one occur.
Of course, we all know that rejection of a Contract proposal, or, in this case, decline of an immediate commitment to long term arrangements, does not mean a strike: It merely means that talks may continue or, in the present state of not knowing what long term conditions in the Industry will be with regard to CETA, such arrangements will be briefly postponed until such knowledge is available.
Canada’s Maritime Transport Industry is a largely seasonal affair and most Canadian seafarers, with familial and other responsibilities, would mostly endure hardship should work become unavailable.
Until CETAs’ future, or lack of one, can be ascertained and the possibility that some Maritime Shipping companies be amenable only to operating at the level of their current offers, those seafarers who wish to do so should be permitted to in order to guarantee a level of income until that determination is possible.
Should some Maritime Shipping companies insist that new long term arrangements go into effect immediately upon conclusion of the old ones, it is their privilege to lock out their employees, should they wish to do so: Under such circumstances, those so affected would at least be eligible for unemployment benefits.
Sailors, being generally of a practical nature, will not initially seek to apportion blame, should they be committed to unfavourable employment conditions for at least 6 years, when CETA may be given the short shrift it deserves (particularly due to its’ Maritime Provisions) to foreign pro-CETA lobbies such as the Conference on Foreign Relations, to which the Union, through its’ affiliation to the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L./C.I.O.),may have obligations which have prevented it from acting effectively against It.
Nor will the fact that the Union derives a large part of its’ income directly from Canadian shipowners, through remittances for the provision of certified seafarers to them, be likely to distract their attention, at least initially.
The Ire of Members, should they have been needlessly committed to long term engagements under unfavourable circumstances will accrue to those members of the Executive who may have made such commitments.
May we all act accordingly to guarantee not only the long term health of both the Canadian Merchant Marine, that of its’ sailors and the Canadian Maritime Transport Industry in general, but that of the rest of Canada, Europe and elsewhere as well.
Yours Truly,
Marc de Villers,
Wheelsman, M.V. “Camilla Desgagnes”,
CDN63142X,
D-1289.