Kelowna has seen its fair share of picket lines in recent months.
Local postal workers have been staging rotating strikes for the past few weeks. And the casino strike, which lasted for several months, finally wrapped up last week.
Next in line could be forestry workers across the Southern Interior — thousands of them with the United Steelworkers, including employees at the Tolko mill in Kelowna. And talks are not going well.
Last week, the president of the local union posted a message on Facebook stating talks have broken off, saying “after making some very significant moves to break the logjam between the two parties, the industry still insisted on keeping concessions on the table and dictating conditions on bargaining.”
The union says times have been good lately for local mills. The organization representing the forest companies admits that’s true, but adds these are volatile times.
“I think that we have had good market conditions over the last number of months,” said Jeff Roos of the Interior Forest Labour Relations Association. “However, there’s recently been a decline in lumber prices.
The Kelowna Chamber of Commerce says if there is a strike in the forestry sector, it will have a trickle-down effect on the local economy.
“The longer a labour disruption occurs, you start to see it impacting because people start to hold back their money,” said Dan Jackson of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. “Particularly when you look around Christmas time and the spending that goes on. So the retail sector can feel it.”
Although the union will be in a legal strike position effective Wednesday, a union memo seen by Global Okanagan indicates there is no job action planned for this week — that the union executive plans on meeting this weekend to come up with a strategy and will begin putting the pressure on the employers effective next week.
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