By July 25, 2024, members of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) will elect a new president.
Current president Greg Pretty, who has served in the position since 2023, announced his retirement after 40 years with the union.
“I’m retiring. My last day will be November 19 of this year,” said Pretty. “This union is extremely significant to our members and to rural Newfoundland and to the future of this fishery, so it’s an important position. We will be looking at it very carefully in the weeks and months to come.”
With Pretty out of the picture, three candidates are vying to fill his position — Longtime FFAW staffer Dwan Street, FFAW newcomer Abe Solberg and Dave Callahan, a fish harvester and business owner from Newfoundland’s west coast.
Each candidate brings a unique background to the table that they feel will lend to their prospective presidential position.
As of 2024, Street has been with the union for a decade. As the daughter of a fisherman and a fish plant worker, she has been steeped in the fishery for as long as she can remember. Before joining the union, Street earned a Bachelor of Arts in social-cultural anthropology and sociology, with a focus on the socioeconomic fabric of the fisheries in rural Newfoundland. From there, she earned a Masters degree in social anthropology and a Masters in marine studies from Memorial University. In 2014, Street joined the FFAW in traceability and marketing before shuffling into a role as an oil and gas liaison. She has also worked in a policy development and analysis position before becoming a staff representative for 3K and 3Ps, which later realigned to her covering only 3Ps.
Solberg is a newcomer to both the FFAW as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, having moved to the province in 2020. Before relocating, he was living in New York City working for a homelessness prevention organization as a program analyst and later as an economist for the city. When COVID-19 hit, he decided to transition to a field that would get him away from his desk more often, which led to him studying fisheries science in N.L. Solberg took a position at the FFAW as a fisheries scientist until the union’s lead negotiator for the 2024 snow crab pricing negotiations stepped down. Given his background in math and statistics, Solberg was asked to step into the role.
Callahan, who also ran against Pretty in 2022, has fished off Newfoundland’s west coast since he was young. He took after his father, who started in the industry running a squid drying operation in the mid-70s, wherein most of their product was shipped to China. Since then, Callahan has gone on to fish lobster and snow crab as well as running an independent gas station in St. George’s, N.L. as well as the Back Home Medical Cannabis Corporation.
Street, having spent the most time within the union, wants to turn the power structure of the FFAW on its head, with power coming from the bottom-up instead of what she sees as a top-down approach.
“The power and authority of decisions that are made and changes that are made should come from the membership, who then go to our councils and then go to our executive board,” said Street. “I think for a long time, we’ve been hearing harvesters say they feel the power has been coming from top-down, and that’s not how a union should operate.”
Another priority for Street is modernizing the criteria for the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board (PFHCB). She said she sees a lot of young harvesters in the industry who want to advance to their Professional Level II fish harvester certification in order to own their own enterprise but are unable to meet the criteria due to economic pressures.
“One of the biggest challenges is a lot of these small enterprises have very small quotas,” said Street. “It’s hard to work as a crew member for five years, support a young family with the cost of living and everything that goes with it and essentially have to live above or below the poverty line to eventually make your goal of becoming an enterprise owner.”
To address this situation, Street advocated for establishing a steering committee of Level II hopefuls, Level II harvesters and harvesters who have managed to establish their own enterprise to understand the problem from all angles. She also wants to address the barriers to entry into the fishery, such as corporate concentration, to keep enterprises in small, rural communities.
“We need to figure out a way to keep those enterprises in those communities, because when an enterprise stays in a community, that family stays in the community. When fish is landed, that value stays in the community,” said Street.
Solberg, like Street, agrees that the FFAW president shouldn’t control union affairs from the top-down, but enact change from the bottom-up. One of his top priorities, should he be elected, is to make the FFAW a more transparent union with more clear lines of communication.
“One of the biggest things I keep hearing from folks is the lack of communication; that we’re not doing a good enough job listening to our members and communicating back what we’re doing on their behalf and that we’re not running as a transparent organization,” said Solberg. “That’s something that I want to deal with day one — to be more forward focused and more publicly focused to our members and checking back in to see they approve the steps we’re taking.”
Solberg also intends for the FFAW to have a clear, communicable mission for what they want the future of the province’s fishery to look like.
“We’re constantly reacting to different crises that come up in the industry, and I think that makes it really difficult for us to stay on message and to achieve the goals that we want to see in having a fair and equitable fishery,” said Solberg. “So, working with our members to establish a long-term vision and the steps we’re going to take to get there is something that’s very important to me.”
Callahan’s first priority when asked about the issues facing the union is new, young entrants into the fishery.
“We need to make it easier to do so. There’s a variety of different financial mechanisms and a variety of different players that could play a part in that,” said Callahan. “The creation of a new, revitalized loan board where you could go to conventional banks and get into the industry a little bit easier and less encumbered.”
Callahan also wants harvesters to receive a larger share of the market value for their catch by allowing the FFAW and its members to market their own product on their terms.
“We shouldn’t be getting told what the price is going to be today. We should be telling these people what the price is going to be at the wharf today,” said Callahan. “Let’s take lobster, for example. They get shipped off the island live, brought to a collection point, they go aboard 747s and they leave the country. When they leave the country, they become a very profitable item. Why can’t we do the same thing and start marketing our own product? It doesn’t have to be all of it, but then there’s more competition for what’s left.”
One of the most high-profile roles of the FFAW president is the part they play in negotiating fish price between the FFAW and the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP). Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest fishery, snow crab, has seen two consecutive years of breakdowns in negotiations, which has led to a late start to the fishery, tie ups and protests.
Street claimed that the relationship between the FFAW and ASP doesn’t always have to be combative, contrary to the way their dealings have been portrayed in recent years.
“There are times where we need to get to the table and work together,” said Street. “There definitely needs to be some changes in how negotiations move, because we’ve run up against the wall on a lot of species. Since COVID, there’s been too much comfort in relying on Zoom and not being at the table face to face. In the past, I remember days down at the Sheraton hotel where you were there until 3:00 in the morning trying to hash out something that was going to work. I think we need to get back there and get across the table, face to face, and work together.”
Solberg, who led negotiations on snow crab in 2024, said the FFAW has laid a groundwork for future pricing systems this year. While he agrees that the union needs to work with the province’s processors, they also can’t be afraid to stand their ground in the face of not getting enough value for their catch.
“It’s not always a negative to have pricing disputes here; for us to stick to our guns and hold out for the right price,” said Solberg. “I do not have any intention of coming in here and enforcing bad deals in order for us to get a fishery started. We need to use our power get a price that we deserve, and hopefully ASP will work with us to do that.”
Callahan said as president, he would be willing to play hardball with the ASP and walk away from the negotiating table altogether.
“My basic view on negotiation is never enter into any negotiation that you’re scared to walk away from. If you walk into it, and it doesn’t work for you, walk away from it. Take another route,” said Callahan. “If ASP wants to play the game in Newfoundland, they have to play the game with the union, and maybe that means giving up some more of what they’re currently not giving, even right down to basic knowledge of what your price is going to be on opening day. It’s always been a crapshoot, and it always comes down to finding a way to minimize the price. I hope the ASP knows that if I am elected, those days are over… It’s going to be fair negotiation with the ability to find an option if we can’t agree. I’ll go out there and I’ll find that option. It’s a big world, and it doesn’t have to be controlled by three or four people sitting in the same meeting room.”
The FFAW will be mailing out ballots in pre-stamped return envelopes to all union members no later than June 18, 2024. All ballots must be sent to the return address in the provided envelopes by no later than July 19, 2024. The ballots will be held by a third-party auditor, Quinlan, Boland and Barret, until July 24, 2024. On this date, the elections committee will count the ballots in the presence of the auditor and scrutineers of the candidates. The results of the election will be made available by July 25, 2024 and the executive board for 2024–2027 will be installed on November 19, 2024.
