Mose Hyde, “This is an illegal lockout of our members.”

With every passing hour that the stevedores remain inactive revenue is being lost.  According to the C.W.U. president, dockworkers are not responsible for the stoppage.  Additionally, Hyde says that the refusal of entry to the waterfront workers is unlawful since it flouts the Essential Services Act.

Evan ‘Mose’ Hyde

Evan ‘Mose’ Hyde, President, Christian Workers Union

“You go to the port right now, gang 5 is there, lined up to work, and we want the agent, we want the public to know, stevedores have nothing to do with the shutdown of the work on the waterfront. So we are appealing that every hour that goes by, our members are being denied the ability to earn a living.  Remember now, stevedores don’t work your regular nine-to-five, so they schedule their lives according to when their shift is going to come up for them to work. This is an illegal lockout of our members, it‘s a breach of our contract and it‘s a breach of the Essential Services Act.  Now if you are asking me about the decision to take back an olive branch, an olive branch that was offered ten months ago, that was responded to with absolute scorn, disrespect and indifference.  And they were aware, the Ministry of Labor was aware that our members have not taken that indifference and taken that, you would say, lack of attention, just like that.  We told them [that] our members are looking at this and feel absolutely insulted.  They have acted with good faith though we maintained that we will not sign because previous history teaches us that until everything is good, you don‘t put any signature on any paper with these people.”