OTTAWA — Dockworkers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union gave 72 hours’ notice that they plan to go back on strike, after a brief work stoppage that Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan said was illegal. Here’s what you need to know:

Why the strike is back: ILWU members first walked out July 1, then again Tuesday after rejecting a settlement proposal from a federal mediator. The settlement wouldn’t “protect our jobs now or into the future,” and doesn’t adequately address the rising cost of living, ILWU Canada president Rob Ashton said in a news release.

But after the Canada Industrial Relations Board ruled Wednesday that renewing the strike required a fresh 72-hour notice, the union sent its members back to the docks until that new notice period runs out on Saturday.

At stake in the port: Pay is significant, said Mark Thompson, a professor emeritus and industrial-relations expert at the University of British Columbia who mediated a Vancouver port labour dispute in the 1990s, but the bigger dispute is over automation and contracting out at the expense of union work.

The Globe and Mail reported the failed settlement included raises and an increase to retirement payouts. Thompson said he was startled not to see more about protecting union work, given its importance to the union.

At stake outside the port: Vancouver’s board of trade warned Canada’s reputation is deteriorating as the value of disrupted trade approaches $10.7 billion. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said its members are hurting. Potash exporter Canpotex cancelled new sales. Will Routley of B.C.’s Functional Beverage Group, whom The Logic spoke with last week, said he’s now out of bottles.

Next: The threat of back-to-work legislation, said Thompson. “You say, ‘If you don’t come out of there with a deal, I’ll give you a deal that neither side will like.’”

How long a bill would take: Practically, about six days. When dockworkers at the Port of Montreal walked out on April 26, 2021, the government tabled back-to-work legislation the next day. With Conservative support, the Liberals got the bill signed into law April 30.

The Commons has adjourned for the summer but the Speaker can recall it—typically on 48 hours’ notice.

The cudgel: Back-to-work legislation used to be the norm at the Vancouver port, Thompson said, creating a disincentive to compromise in bargaining.

Port strikes used to halt grain shipments routinely, Thompson said, but not for a long time: “The grain farmers on the Prairies just set their hair on fire—if any shipment of grain backed up in the elevators, why, they were screaming bloody murder, and the government succumbed to those pressures and ordered [port workers] back to work.”

Eventually, fed up, the government inserted a clause in the federal labour code requiring dockworkers to service grain vessels, even during strikes or lockouts.

Look for something like that in a back-to-work bill, Thompson said—a warning against making the government intervene.

“We have a period of labour unrest in this country,” he said. “The labour ministry takes a long view.”