July 29 2016

Page 1

Nickel Belt News

Volume 56 Number 30

Friday, July 29, 2016

Thompson, Manitoba

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No grain shipping from Churchill this year ‘It really is almost like somebody died,’ says nine-year port employee BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET

The news that no grain will be shipped this year from the Port of Churchill, which laid off more than 30 workers on July 25, is on the minds and lips of everyone in Manitoba, from government and politicians to business owners and union members, with one notable exception: OmniTrax, the company that owns the facility, which had yet to address the issue publicly as of July 27. The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees (UCTE) - part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) - which represents the affect employees, said a July 26 press release that the news caught the affected workers completely off-guard. “Our members were blindsided,” said UCTE regional vice-president Teresa Eschuk. “There was no discussion, no warning, nothing.” The union members were given the news in a meeting on Monday afternoon. The decision will have a major impact in Manitoba’s northern port town, which has a population of about 800, approximately 10 per cent of whom were employed by the port during shipping season from July to November in recent years. “Our concern is for the community as a whole,” said PSAC regional executive vice-president Marianne Hladun. “It’s not like there’s another employer in town that can absorb these workers.” The union says that since the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board, which shipped wheat from the port, the number of people the facility employed has been declining. About 60 unionized employees worked at the port last year and a similar number were expected to work there this season before OmniTrax’s decision. Hladun said getting information about the potential sale of the port and the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill from the company, which was negotiating with prospective buyer Mathias Colomb Cree Nation at Pukatawagan, had proven difficult. “For months we have been asking for information about the potential sale of the business and they ignored us,” Hladun said. “I’m not surprised by the lack of communication on this one.” Churchill resident Joe Stover was counting on a job at the port this summer to help him make it through the slow winter months after all the tourists who trek north to see polar bears have gone home. “That’s how people make their money,”

Nickel Belt News file photo Workers at the Port of Churchill received layoff notices July 25 after OmniTrax, the company that owns the port and the Hudson Bay Railway. told them grain will not be shipped from the Hudson Bay port this season. said Stover, who was expecting this to be his 10th shipping season working at the port, though he hadn’t yet been called back to work. “It’s like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. We make what we can so that if we have to we can survive and that’s going to hit a lot of people hard, especially those who have been working there their whole lives because that’s all they know. There’s not 70 jobs in town for people to have, there just isn’t. Their options are to look elsewhere for work, maybe having to travel out of town, or going on welfare. The choices are pretty clear for somebody that doesn’t have any work in front of them and their nest egg from the previous season is running out. This is going to be the death knell for a few people, I’d say, as far as them staying in this community. For a community that is losing population slowly as it is,

if this is a long-term thing, that the port permanently shutters its doors, then it’s going to be a completely different town. I can’t even grasp it to think what it’s going to be like.” Stover, who currently works at the airport refuelling planes, has three weeks of steady employment ahead of him before he’s in the same boat as the people who are losing their jobs at the port. “My boss knew that the plan was to go back to the port this season so there’s already a new employee that is training and ready to take the job that I have,” he says. Those who had already been called back for the season got two weeks’ notice of the layoffs. The mood in Churchill is grim, Stover says. “It dominates every conversation,” he says of the shutdown. “It really is almost

like somebody died because everybody’s sad. It happened unexpectedly so people don’t know really know how to take it. They were prepared for a crappy season but nobody saw it coming. I just never envisioned that they would let this happen.” The Winnipeg Free Press had reported recently that it was likely going to be a slow season for shipping and remarks that OmniTrax Canada president Merv Tweed made at that time gave no indication of the drastic measure announced Monday. “This really caught a lot of us offguard,” said Stover. “It’s awful hard on people that were told three weeks ago that we were still going to have a season. Even if was rumbling around in people’s mind, ‘Oh, I don’t know, should I go to Keeyask, should I go do this, should I stay at this job that I found?’ it was probably reassuring Continued on Page 9

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