Labour Group Announces it Will be Proceeding with Second Certification Drive Later This Year
Earlier this spring, it appeared the death knell was not far off for the Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL).
Ryan Cleary, President of FISH-NL, made a final plea that the upstart labour organization would be shuttered by the end of April and abandon a second attempt at certification unless inshore harvesters stepped up to the plate and paid their dues of $288 a year.
And for now, it appears that plea worked in bringing FISH-NL back from the brink.
Cleary recently announced that FISH-NL will proceed with a second application for certification — including a province-wide membership drive to begin August 1 — to break inshore harvesters away from their current union.
“We’re full steam ahead — shoulders to the wheel,” Cleary said.
“Inshore harvesters have told us they want change and we’ll continue to do everything in our power to deliver on that change.”
FISH-NL set a deadline of April 30 to raise $150,000 from harvesters in the form of dues, funds required to follow through with a second application for certification and three-month card-signing drive.
But FISH-NL did not reach the funding goal.
“We’re not even close — yet,” said Cleary, “but the flow of dues has been steady as fisheries resume and catches are landed. What we’re most encouraged by, and what drives us is constant internal polling that puts support for FISH-NL at up to 66 per cent.”
“FISH-NL also isn’t prepared to abandon the thousands of harvesters who’ve put their faith in us. Many of them say they might as well sell out if FISH-NL isn’t around, and we’re not prepared to leave them high and dry.”
Peter Leonard, vice-president of FISH-NL and an inshore harvester from Southern Harbour, quoted well-known Twillingate fisherman Richard Gillett in summing up his thoughts on the current union FFAW-Unifor representation.
“I’d rather fight on my feet than live on my knees,” said Leonard. “We’ll keep going until we can go no more.”
FISH-NL’s first application for certification was dismissed by the province’s Labour Relations Board in late September 2018 — almost two years after it was filed. The Board ruled FISH-NL did not have the support of at least 40 per cent of harvesters required to trigger a vote for them to decide which union they want to represent them.
The Board defined an inshore harvester as anyone with a fish sale in their name, and dues automatically forwarded to the FFAW-Unifor.
“It’s been almost three years since I was approached by harvesters about forming a breakaway union, and while the challenge has been the greatest of my career, we now know the rules of the game and can see the goal posts,” said Cleary. “We’ll get there yet.”
By law, the earliest FISH-NL can submit an application for certification is November 1, with the card-signing drive to tentatively run from August 1-October 31.
Submitted to the Labour Relations Board on Dec. 30, 2016, FISH-NL’s application for certification included membership cards signed by 2,372 inshore harvesters, collected over a two-month certification drive from more than 300 communities around Newfoundland and Labrador. The upstart labour group needed to sign up a minimum of 40 per cent of the province’s inshore fishermen to trigger a vote away from the rival Fish, Food and Allied Workers union (FFAW).
Throughout the entire process, the FFAW maintained that its membership list contained around 10,000 harvesters and that FISH-NL never did sign up enough fishermen to trigger a vote.
The FFAW said it was pleased with the Labour Relations Board decision to dismiss FISH-NL’s certification application.
“The investigation by the Labour Relations Board into FISH-NL’s application confirmed FFAW-Unifor’s longstanding assertion that there are nearly 10,000 inshore fish harvesters in our province, which clearly shows that FISH-NL did not have adequate support to warrant a vote,” the union said in a press release at the time. The FFAW noted that the Labour Relations Board decision acknowledged the flaws of FISH-NL’s application and spoke to FISH-NL’s attempts to manipulate the process.
“Subsequent to filing the application and as it became clear that it did not have members in good standing as a majority of the existing bargaining unit, FISH-NL submitted that only fish harvesters meeting FISH-NL’s proposed criteria should be included in the bargaining unit for the purpose of deciding whether to conduct a certification vote. The application was not filed on this basis,” the decision read.
