Labour MLA predicts unions will reclaim power, influence through 'protest and violence'

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Reid Southwick
Telegraph-Journal

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SAINT JOHN - Saint John Lancaster MLA Abel LeBlanc says the city's industrial unions will reclaim power and influence they lost to government and "big business-" and it could even come to blows.

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Cindy Wilson/Telegraph-Journal

Abel LeBlanc says he would recommend they do it peacefully, but he foresees unions reclaiming power they have lost to government and ‘big business’.

"We will take it back, and it's got to come from the grassroots and real leadership," said LeBlanc, a former longshoreman, on Tuesday.

"I would only recommend that they do it peacefully. Somewhere down the line it will come to protest and violence."

LeBlanc's comments come a day after common council dismissed the concerns of the longshoremen's union and voted resoundingly in favour of selling the former Lantic Sugar site to Irving Oil.

The vote marks the first step in the company's bid to build its corporate headquarters on the waterfront. Under the deal, Irving Oil would swap the Lantic Sugar property for a portion of Long Wharf and build a $30-million office building there.

The federal government must now approve the land swap.

LeBlanc said council's approval is not an indication of union influence in Saint John. He said the International Longshoremen's Association Local 273, which believes Long Wharf should be preserved for the working port, has fought the deal on its own and will continue to do so without the help of other labour groups.

LeBlanc said council members were "backed into a corner" on the Lantic Sugar sale and were intimidated by the Irving company and the Saint John Port Authority.

At least four councillors, however, said during Monday's meeting they were voting in favour of the sale in response to sweeping support from their constituents.

"The council was backed into a corner by the Irvings, by the port authority, saying the Irvings are going to move to Moncton, they're going to move to Quispamsis," said LeBlanc. "That's where the heat came from; that where the intimidation came from the kick-start."

But LeBlanc, a retired longshoreman who worked the waterfronts of Saint John and Toronto for more than 40 years, said unions are losing power in the city and they will one day get it back.

"The unions are being destroyed by big business," said LeBlanc, adding employers have even begun eroding pension benefits during the collective bargaining process.

"But we're going to come back. The 'double-breasting' bill that went through the legislative assembly is a fine example."

The bill prevents employers with unionized employees from setting up a second, mirror company to avoid dealing with organized labour, a practice known as "double-breasting."

LeBlanc also pointed to protests last fall over concerns the Liberal government would merge the University of New Brunswick Saint John with other community colleges. He said many union members were in the crowds, and their opposition convinced the government to reconsider the reforms.

The province unveiled a different, less radical set of reforms for post-secondary education earlier this year that did not involve a merger.

"Protests are good things and show that people can react to what happens," said LeBlanc. "When you disturb somebody else's feathers, then they react from the grassroots."

Terry Wilson, president of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 273, declined Tuesday to respond to LeBlanc's statements, saying, "I'm not going to comment on that."

The Saint John & District Labour Council did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.