The Association of Seafood Producers is rebuffing calls from the Fisheries Union for the provincial government to introduce more transparency to fish price negotiations.
Derek Butler, the head of the ASP, says the FFAW’s lament is not about transparency and not about fairness.
He says it’s about asking the government to “put a stick on the ice” and “get on the side of the FFAW at the table, to supply the union with the information” they want to “advance their position.”
Butler says harvesters in this province have legislated collective bargaining, legislated arbitration and the provision of various services from the processing sector, including payroll administration – none of which Butler says, feature in other fisheries in the country.
Butler says if the conversation were really about transparency then they’d be asking how much does it cost to pull a pound of fish from the water, where are the crew costs and what’s the value of EI in the fishery versus landed value.
He says the FFAW’s calls for transparency are a one-way street in the union’s interests, but not the industry’s.