On October 21st the Victoria edition of Canada.com headlined a story "B.C. Ferries survey says wages too high". A link was provided to the BC Ferries' news release but not to the survey which is also on the ferry corporation's website. Perhaps that explains why the story missed a startling fact - only 11% of those surveyed felt that the union contract favours the union, and the question "What makes the contract favor union workers?" was only put to those 11% of the respondents!  So 75% of 11% feel wages are too high; that's 8% but the story seems to have missed what the other 92% think.

Many readers may not have understood that 78% of the 701 people who were surveyed on behalf of BC Ferries in early October said they have no opinion or don't know when asked the tenth question in the telephone survey: "What is your general impression of the overall terms and conditions of the contract between BC Ferries and its unionized workers?"  The survey asked 7 detailed questions regarding the contract. BC Ferries issued a news release on the survey which emphasized, in bulleted form, 8 issues, 5 of which concerned detailed aspects of the union agreement. It is generally a bad idea for either side in collective bargaining to try to do their bargaining through the media. It is particularly bad when the employer spins a misleading poll so as to turn the public against the union; it suggests that the employer is preparing public opinion for eventual government interference through a legislatively imposed contract.

Legislation which changed the structure of BC Ferries made the corporation an essential service. That doesn't mean that strikes are outlawed; it just means that any service withdrawals must be approved in accordance with an essential service plan approved by the Labour Relations Board. The Campbell government did the same thing in education. It campaigned to make education an essential service. After it did that, it didn't give the process a chance to work before introducing legislation that imposed a contract on school boards and teachers. It then failed to fully fund the contract that it imposed. Could it be that workers at BC Ferries are being set up for the same treatment?

The BC Ferries' news release didn't mention that only 11% of those surveyed believe that the existing union contract favors the union. It didn't report that 35% consider double time for overtime to be fair and reasonable. Even after prompting (complete with examples) in a question about starting wages, 42% said that starting wages are fair and reasonable compared to 55% who said they are too high. On the overtime penalty of an hour of pay for as little as one minute of overtime worked, 20% said that the provision is fair and reasonable and 2% said it isn't enough. All that came from a sample that started with more than three out of four saying that they didn't have an opinion or they didn't know enough to comment!

Many industrial relations experts would probably label the survey and news release from BC Ferries as reckless and provocative. A similar sort of "ready, fire, aim" approach to business has been demonstrated in front page news reports that BC Ferries is considering building a terminal at the Vancouver Airport even though it has yet to discuss the idea with either the Airport Authority or with officials for the City of Richmond. Trial balloons can be dismissed as nothing more than ill conceived efforts to stay in the news or to generate public discussion, but the corporation's follies with respect to passenger safety are not so easily dismissed. Some passengers were recently restricted from boarding a ferry because updated evacuation chutes could not provide a safe exit for infants or for disabled passengers. The Campbell government made it impossible to obtain information from BC Ferries under Freedom of Information legislation, but leaks continue to disclose facts the corporation would just as soon keep hidden from the public. One such leak alleges that the corporation has applied to Transport Canada to have BC Ferries' vessels reclassified under an "Inland Waters License". That is a license that applies to vessels that are never more than 30 minutes from land; it allows the vessels to carry significantly less safety equipment than what is currently found on a BC Ferry. If it is true that Transport Canada is being lobbied by BC Ferries to allow changes in required safety equipment, the corporation should make a full public disclosure. That would be far more useful than silly trial balloons about terminals at the airport, or surveys that appear designed to derail collective bargaining.