Changing workplace culture on the waterfront stalled by lack of women workers

The Vancouver Sun
By Kim Pemberton, Vancouver Sun
November 22, 2009

VANCOUVER - Attempts to deal with complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination against female workers appear to be stalled, the head of the BC Maritime Employers Association has indicated.
BCMEA president and CEO Andy Smith said a management proposal to deal with the problems can’t proceed until a union demand to clear up a backlog of job applicants is dealt with.
But since only 132 of the nearly 2,000 applicants are women and jobs on the waterfront are scarce, it would be a long time before any real gender equity would be achieved at the port. Only 4.7 per cent of Vancouver longshore workers are women now, and only some of them are union members.
“This is an issue of under-representation,” Smith said in an interview. “We won’t get the culture changed with the tiny fragment of women working on the waterfront.”
Smith also said that the union — the International Longshore Warehouse Union Canada — wants the benefits of existing longshore workers to be improved before proceeding with affirmative action.

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