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Volume 61 No. 07
Union gives strike vote Cameron Orr Martin McIlwrath, the business agent representing the District of Kitimat employees, says the union absolutely will work towards avoiding a strike, but even if it comes to that they will await essential service designations from the Labour Relations Board before serving a notice. As of Friday union members had voted 95 per cent in favour of strike action, but Unifor 2300 was waiting for an essential services hearing scheduled for this past Monday before potentially issuing a strike notice. He said there were still meetings planned between the District and themselves. “We’re still trying to avoid a labour dispute, for sure,” he said. McIlwrath, representing the members of Unifor 2300, says it had been a struggle getting the city’s negotiators to the table to bargain but assured that no snow clearing efforts were compromised due to collective agreement negotiations. Local 2300 released a letter last week outlining the timeline for bargaining since December, explaining their frustrations making headway, while negotiations are now well past the expiry of the last agreement which ended December 31, 2014. The letter was a means to combat rumours on social media that snow clearing may have been slowed due to contract issues and that the members may have already been on strike. A month’s worth of meetings in January only resulted in 21 of their 90 or so items reaching agreement with the District, the union says. The District of Kitimat also indicate they’ve met eye to eye on approximately 20 topics.
The start of a new student-led feature.
Volume 1 No. 01
Kitimatian shares his view from the sky. /page 12
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A vessel at MK Bay Marina presses against and damages a walkway, following a snow storm which caused a number of boats at the facility to sink.
Snowfall causes damage to MK Cameron Orr The intense level of snow Kitimat experienced in just one weekend resulted in a number of boats lost at MK Bay Marina. Marina manager Kevin Guest said four boats were sunk due to snow, two boathouses, and one vessel was nearly fully submerged before it was recovered. Guest said staff went to work Friday morning but were sent away by the afternoon as the road was to be closed off. “We weren’t allowed back until Sunday,” he said. Guest said the fact that boathouses toppled over is unusual and he had been out inspecting damages and has some guesses for what happened. “It’s very unusual for boathouses to go over. I’ve been out there in the boat to assess what it was and my estimate is the boathouses that went over got heavy with snow and one side of the snow let go and then it becomes like a bobbing
MEMSS /page 11
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
cork...they flip to the side,” he said. “We’re just guessing because we don’t really know,” he added. He said the next step is for the insurance companies to get in touch with boat owners to figure out how to proceed. The marina meanwhile is doing what it can to protect the environment in the area. “Right now we have oil retention booms around the vessels to stop the hydrocarbonsWednesday, being discharged in to the February 18, 2015 general marina,” he said. “But the biggest problem is, we’re getting fuel [come in] from Minette Bay and from the Village, because they had vessels sunk in both locations too. Unfortunately the tide washes in towards us more than anything.” One of the boats that sunk is breaking up the sea dock, he said, because of how it came up under the walkway. For boat owners whose boats didn’t sink, Guest says they should get down to the marina if they haven’t already and
The Buzz
clear off snow to protect against future possible sinking. Kitimat’s Marine Rescue Society had issues of their own getting to their boats so no efforts could have been made to save the other marina boats until it was too late. Unit Leader Chris Peacock said the group had seen the photos of the damage on social media and began fearing for their own boathouse too, but they couldn’t get to it until Monday because the road was not cleared until then. “After shoveling off our boat and dock, I was relieved to see that no damage had occurred. At that point, attention was turned to MK Bay,” said Peacock. He took a salvage pump over to the marina but the only boat that could be saved was a 12 foot aluminum skiff that was nearly under. Peacock said boat owners and marina staff did a great job doing what they could to save boats.