FREDERICTON, New Brunswick — The union representing lobster fishermen in New Brunswick said Saturday that it has reached an agreement with the provincial government and fish processing plants after fishermen blockaded several Canadian plants, demanding that they not accept cheaper lobsters from Maine.
Christian Brun of the The Maritime Fishermen’s Union said a tentative deal was reached Friday night and approved by most of the fishermen early Saturday morning.
Tensions over lobster prices bubbled over last week, when fishermen in the province held demonstrations in Cap-Pele and Shediac and trucks were blocked from delivering Maine lobsters to processing plants. Canadian lobstermen say the low price of Maine lobsters is driving down prices in Canada and stealing their livelihood.
By Wednesday, every lobster processing plant in New Brunswick had shut down operations.
Maine each year ships millions of pounds of lobsters to Canada, where they’re turned into a variety of products that are sold on retail markets, mostly in the U.S.
Canada has more than two dozen processing plants, while Maine has only three of any size.
Processors in New Brunswick agreed more than a week ago to pay a minimum of CA$2.50 (US$2.52) per pound for processed lobster and CA$3 (US$3.03) per pound for live market lobster but the union said it wasn’t enough.
Calls for financial compensation were rejected by the New Brunswick government and the protests continued for a week before a provincial judge issued a 10-day injunction Thursday preventing fishermen from blockading the plants.
The dispute tested relations between New Brunswick and the state of Maine, where Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe called on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to raise the matter with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
Brun said the deal reached Saturday calls for processors to pay an additional 25 Canadian cents per lobster, to be matched by the union.
That will bring the price up to CA$3 (US$3.03) per pound for processed lobster and CA$3.50 (US$3.53) per pound for live market lobster.
Brun said the union plans to take out a loan to cover the extra expense now that the province has pledged to extend a CA$11-million (US$11.09 million) loan program for another three years as part of the agreement.
“There is no injection of funds, no loan guarantees, nothing,” he said.
“We, as a union, have gone to a bank and negotiated a loan … we borrow the money now, pay them during the season and repay it for the next three years as a loan instead of paying the province.”
The union’s 25 Canadian cents will come from snow crab revenues and will be capped at 15,000 pounds (6,800 kilograms) of lobster for each harvester, or less if the funds get used up sooner, he said.
The resolution only applies for the current fishery, which starts Monday in the Northumberland Strait and in the southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Violence pays… maybe we should try it here but suspect it wouldn’t help since we don’t have a union or goverment willing to negotiate a raise for us instead of us going to jail for our violent protests.
It is what made America.
Ask King George.
And it might well be time in America to really stand up to the too big to fail corporate powers to remind them our work is supposed to promote the general welfare…. not just the corporate welfare.
Maine lobstermen should be as well organized and then really go on strike until they get paid enough per pound to live upon.
You are so ignorant about Canadian polotics and how unions are run.
Almost as ignorant as you are about lobstering
Why don’t we ever see lobstermen in the news saying life is good. If you cannot make a living it doesn’t require a high degree of itelligence to move on. Not everyone else’s fault…
Do you even know what you are blabering about?
Hopefully then that means that Maine lobstermen should see a price increase Monday too.
Yah, maybe it helps to catch undersized lobsters when compared to what Canadians can catch. We in the US are destroying our future by catching lobsters that are to small to keep.
The Canadian measure is smaller then ours, meaning they can legally keep smaller lobsters. Do your research before you make such an uneducated comment.
Sorry your wrong, yet again! Check your facts before you show your fellow Mainers just how ignorant you are.
Where are you from? The Canadian legal measure is 2 1/2 – 3 1/16 depending on the district. Our measure is 3 1/4 throughout the entire state. Having trouble with conversions or are you from Idaho?
One of our hottest debates over the years has been whether to allow undersized Canadian lobster into the country for processing. We don’t.
Some Canadian zones allow 2.5″ minimums so maybe you should check your facts.
…
Why are so few Processing Plants in Maine?
Processors in Maine say that subsidies from the provincial governements give Canadian processors a competitive edge on both capital and operating costs:
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2012/08/08/business/maine-ponders-industry-strategy-as-lobster-protests-continue-in-canada/
That was a good article with some interesting facts and point of views.
So does that mean government can create jobs?
No, It means that government destroys jobs by artificially propping up industries which cannot survive it’s own bloated financial structure through competition. Canadian subsidies have been unfair from the start and have sought to destroy the industry here in favor of industry in Canada. Environmentalists here have supported this by encouraging laws which cost American companies more to process than Canadian businesses. NAFTA is a one way street and always has been for Maine.