The union is all of us: Eric’s story
I came to BC Ferries because my wife asked me to find a job closer to home. At the time, I was working on live-aboard tugs in the Arctic, six months on and six months off.
I started at BC Ferries as a seasonal deckhand. I wasn’t kept on after my first year, and when BC Ferries called me back in the spring of 2010, I was on a North Pole expedition. By then, my wife was pregnant with our first daughter. Staying close to Vancouver Island instead of heading back to the Beaufort Sea suddenly made a lot more sense.
After my second summer, I became casual and I stayed. I spent six years working on deck at BC Ferries before moving into engineering. I like working with my hands and engineering reminded me of the work I’d done on tugboats and with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. When you’re working in the Arctic and something needs welding, you weld it. There’s nobody else around to call.
Somewhere along the way, I got involved in the union.
It started when two casual catering employees who were in nursing school were told the company would no longer accommodate their education schedule, despite their combined 17 years of service. Their choices were essentially to resign or become seasonal and lose their seniority and callback rights.
They were upset and I thought it was wildly wrong. I wasn’t a shop steward. I didn’t hold a union position. But I’d worked in unionized environments before and knew that if an employer was going to make your life hard, you shouldn’t make it easy for them.
I contacted the union and connected with my local president at the time, Mike Nelson. Together, we wrote to the CEO. BC Ferries was always saying its people were its most important asset, so we asked why it was treating two long-term employees this way.
A few weeks later, after intervention by the CEO the company reversed its decision. Both members were able to stay at BC Ferries, keep their seniority and continue nursing school. That was a big moment for me. I saw that we could make positive change in people’s lives.
Mike invited me to a local meeting. When I arrived, he introduced me as a new member of the local executive. That was the first I’d heard of it.
From there, I became a shop steward, then first vice-president of my local. I served with Peter Kelly for three years before becoming local president. After three years as local president, I decided to run for provincial president in 2021.
I thought our union needed to be more assertive and more willing to fight for members. We had just come out of bargaining in 2020, and the first wage increase was zero per cent.
I’ve been a lifelong complainer, but complaining is a bit like voting. If you want to complain about politics, you have to vote. If you want to complain about your union or your workplace, you have to get involved.
The more I wanted things to change, the more I realized I had to get involved and do the work.
One of the things I’ve learned since then is there’s no shortage of work in this job. If you want to do it properly, you can be busy almost all the time.
One of the biggest challenges facing our union today is dealing with employers who aren’t prepared to negotiate freely, fairly and openly. When that happens, members must be united and prepared to fight for what’s right.
We saw the strength of that solidarity at Hullo. When bargaining broke down, more than 90 per cent of members voted in favour of job action. That sent a powerful message to their employer. Workers know what they want, they know what they deserve and they have each other’s backs. When members are united, our ability to make real gains in wages, benefits, pensions and working conditions increases substantially.
My hope for this union is that we continue becoming an even stronger voice for mariners and marine workers in Canada. We’re one of the country’s largest maritime unions. We represent thousands of people and we have an opportunity to make real change. But that only happens when members get involved.
The union isn’t some office or organization somewhere else. It’s every union member and every worker in the workplace. The more people who participate, the better our decisions reflect what members actually want. That makes our union stronger. And ultimately, that makes our workplaces stronger too.
Eric McNeely, Provincial President, BCFMWU
