In War and Labour Relations the truth is the first casualty

It used to be in British Columbia that the nastiest battles between management and union were fought in the forest, pulp and fishing sectors of the province. But judging by the tone of debate coming out of the BC Ferry System these days, those old days of labour management clashes were positively harmonious.

The gloves appear to have come off between BC Ferries management and the BC Marine Workers Union, as each side trades accusations regarding the sinking in March of the Queen of the North. Wednesday brought a collection of nasty press conferences, where each side blasted the other over safety and labour issues. The day featured BC Ferries President David Hahn taking a hard line over the lack of participation by the union in the BC Ferries investigation, while the union asked the disturbing question ‘are the ships safe’?

Hahn has been busy taking to the airwaves on CKNW with Bill Good explaining the Ferries side of the issue, late Wednesday morning, Marine Workers president Jackie Miller took part in a segment on the same show with Good. You can check it all out by listening in to the audio vault from 8:30-9 and then from 11-11:30 am for an overview of both sides.

Things came to head today as the Transportation Safety Board issued a letter suggesting that on watch personnel did not feel fully trained on vital bridge equipment. It was a charge that the Ferry Corporation is taking with a bit of indignation. For his part Hahn stated that there was a fourteen minute black hole that needs to be accounted for by those on watch that night.

The tone of debate on Wednesday doesn’t bode well for a smooth relationship in the short term and offers up concerns about discovering the final word on just what happened prior to the Queen of the North hitting Gil Island. With the Transportation Safety Board report not expected until next year and an RCMP investigation ongoing as well there will no doubt be many travelers on the Ferry system looking for answers and reassurance that sailing on the provinces ferry system offers up the safest possible standard. In the current toxic relationships between these two sides, it seems hard to believe we’ll get anywhere while all the rhetoric is blasting from both sides.

The province needs to step up and take a lead on this matter immediately, letting the two sides engage in a nasty battle of he said, she said is doing no one any good and doesn’t offer up much in the way of closure for the two lost souls on the Queen of the North that night. So far in this mess, the government has been far too quiet and dis-engaged from the issue. While normally one would shy away from that over-used Canadian tradition of a judicial inquiry or Royal Commission, in this instance perhaps that is exactly what is required. The power to investigate, seek out the truth and lay out guidelines to ensure safety, should be a key ingredient of the province’s involvement, the people of British Columbia need to know what happened that night, as well as be reassured that their ferry system is still among the safest in the world.

Otherwise we will find ourselves reading many more stories like the front page story of Wednesday’s Daily News reprinted below, a story that leaves one to wonder about the safety of the ferry fleet and the state of relations between the union and the Ferry system today.

FERRY UNION ASKING: ‘ARE SHIPS SAFE?’
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Page One

The B. C. Ferry and Marine Worker’s Union is calling for a full safety audit of the province’s ferries as preliminary details on the cause of the Queen of the North’s sinking are being released.

“Perhaps there should be a safety audit of B. C. Ferries … to see if it’s safe to travel on B. C. Ferries,” said Jackie Miller, union president, from Victoria this morning. “That should include everything from the safety management system to worker health and safety… I think we need to ask the company if their ships are safe.”

At a press conference this morning, the union boss was joined by a ferry captain to detail a litany of safety concerns that the union contends it has brought up over the years that the corporation has ignored.

Among them were crew from the Queen of Burnaby that were working aboard the Queen of Tsawwassen, which has different safety equipment. The union contends – and will be including the information as part of a submission to the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) – that the company changed documents to say the crew was familiar with the equipment.

The ferries union also expressed concerns about the Queen of Prince Rupert, which is currently pulling double duty on the North Coast and making trips to both Port Hardy and the Queen Charlotte Islands. Miller said she sailed aboard the ship in April after there were issues with equipment familiarity, or a lack of adequate training by the company, is being cited as an issue in initial reports on the sinking of the Queen of the North by TSB.

Miller said her members have answered all the questions posed by the Transportation Safety Board, the RCMP and the corporation’s lawyers about the March 22 tragedy. But she says lawyers acting for crew have advised their clients not to participate in an internal B. C. Ferries inquiry.

Meanwhile, B. C. Ferries Corporation president David Hahn is saying that crew members on board the ship should have raised any safety concerns before the vessel sank last March.

“Some of the bridge team members are saying they weren’t familiar,” said Hahn. “I would argue very strongly they should have stood up and said, “I can’t sail this ship.’

“Would you take a 25 foot power boat out in the middle of Howe Sound, if you didn’t know how to operate a power boat?” To me there’s a common sense that comes into play here.”

However, Miller said every time workers bring up safety concerns they are punished by the company.

The TSB wrote a letter to B. C. Ferries last month saying “information gathered so far has revealed that some bridge team members were not familiar with the use of all the bridge equipment and controls.”

The letter notes that members of the bridge team had different understandings of how the new steering-mode selector switch worked and weren’t aware of how to adjust the electronic chart system display. The letter says that while the chart system was left on the night of the sinking, the monitor was turned off to reduce glare. As a result, the ship’s course was not displayed.

“If people weren’t getting familiarization, there was new equipment on the bridge and people weren’t getting familiarization, then that’s a breakdown in the system, absolutely,” said Bob Beadell, a former BC. Ferries safety development officer that developed a safety system for the Queen of the North that outlined crew training for new equipment.

Beadell resigned from B. C. Ferries in 2000 largely as a result of his concerns about whan the said was the vulnerability of the Queen of the North.