Plea for LRB to change decision allowing reduction of services
I am writing today to bring awareness to the upcoming strike on our cable ferry in Glade, B.C. We are a small community on the east shore of the Kootenay River between Nelson and Castlegar. A small community of roughly 300 people with zero amenities, no doctors, grocery stores, gas stations etc…
We love our community. We love where we live. We love raising our three children here.
The Labour Relations Board decision to change the essential service order established in 2019 is detrimental to our community.
For those of you who have never visited Glade, you should know our cable ferry is our only way in and out. It is our highway to the necessities of life. There is no alternative route. We use the ferry to get to our jobs that keep a roof over our heads, fill our fridge and provide the necessities of life. Let me state all jobs are essential.
We use this ferry to get our children to school, to get food, to get fuel, to get to medical and vet appointments, to get our mail and necessary packages delivered, to get hay deliveries for animals, to have propane delivered for home heating, to get a plumber when our water line breaks, to get our septics emptied, to transfer garbage, to have caregivers look after our sick and elderly.
Our ferry service has been cut by 90 per cent and only on demand for “esential trips” like medical appointments, kids getting to school and people working in healthcare or education. The rest of us don’t matter to Western Pacific Marine, the BCGEU, the LRB or the B.C. government.
If those of us who are deemed not essential can’t fit on one of the 16 sailings (and they will be full) are stuck either not getting to our jobs and food or stuck without shelter trying to return home. My husband (father of three), our sole income provider, will be forced to paddle our canoe across the river in January and in the dark.
Who is responsible if anything happens to him? Who will take care of my family? And he is far from being the only one planning on taking personal boats across.
The safety issues of long lines, division of neighbours, very narrow roads, winter conditions, no adequate parking, no washrooms, and no traffic control is beyond incomprehensible!
No one is looking out for the people of Glade (and Harrop/Proctor). No one cares about 300 people on this side of the river. The government should not grant another contract to WPM. BCGEU should realize their demands are putting our lives at risk. The LRB needs to retract their decision and realize our ferry should always be deemed essential and service should never be interrupted again.
We are pawns in this awful game between parties who don’t care about who it hurts. This strike is not like others. Postal, transit and teacher strikes do not have the same impact as this strike action. It needs to stop now before someone loses their job, their home or their life!
To sum all of this up, everyone here in Glade is formally requesting the LRB to retract their present decision and re open the Glade Cable Ferry to regular service.
Roxanne Reid
Glade, B.C.
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Open letter to Premier Eby about our ferries
Dear Mr. Eby,
I live in Glade, a small community of around 300 people in the West Kootenays, accessible only by ferry. Up until Gordon Cambell got elected in 2001, our ferry was operated by the Government of B.C. They always did a good job. Campbell and his Transport minister Judith Reid threatened to put tolls on our ferry and to privatize the service. We fought hard against that decision. In the end, the government decided against imposing tolls, but they still went ahead and contracted out the operation of inland ferries. So now, King Charles still owns the ferries, but the operation of them is contracted out.
The contractor on the Arrow Lakes has settled with their employees, but the contractor on the Kootenay Lake side refuses to provide the same contract to their employees. You cannot expect the workers on our ferry to accept a poorer contract.
This ferry strike is already forcing many people to drive over one of the most precarious passes in B.C., in the winter! As far as I know, no one has died while doing so yet, but it is only a matter of time. We have just received notice that our ferry will be sailing only 16 times daily starting Jan. 3. This schedule will put everyone in our community out of work unless everyone launches a boat to cross the river. We have many older residents who may be at risk due to lack of or very slow access to medical care. It is a tragedy in the making.
Our contractor is not fulfilling the obligations that they accepted when they signed the contract. They are pledging to pay the operators only for trips taken. The government should cancel their contract and run the service themselves. I reckon the cost of running our little ferry has at least tripled since we let in the middlemen. The NDP fancies itself a Socialist Party so why are we still paying the privatization premium for most of our public services?
Rod Retzlaff
Glade, B.C.
Ferry access key to Glade
“Walk on water” was a term used by our community to plea for public support when threats were made to access and reduced sailings or tolls.
At that time, no sailing interruptions occurred. Fast forward 20 years and lack of access impacting livelihoods and the economy are beginning.
As a former member of Glade Ferry Access Committee, I again plea to the public to understand the importance those crossings have on the Kootenays, show respect to those impacted and those workers’ right to stand for fairness in providing us with this great service now and into the future.
Blake Sorrell
Glade, B.C.