The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association filed a complaint with the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship and Dock Foremen Local 514 on May 10 for the labor union's "conduct" and its "intransigence at the bargaining table," the association said.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference will meet with Canadian National ahead of its strike deadline on May 13 and Canadian Pacific Kansas City on May 17, the teamsters said in a news release May 2. The teamsters voted on May 1 to strike if no deal is reached with both companies, and the earliest the union could strike would be on May 22, Canadian National said.
Masud Husain, a Canadian foreign service official, will replace Sheri Meyerhoffer as the new head of the government agency that investigates human rights concerns, including forced labor, in Canadian-linked supply chains, the country announced April 30. Husain will take over “later this year” in an interim role as the Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise (CORE), Canada said.
Hugo Boss has implemented a "comprehensive risk management system" to monitor compliance with human rights within its supply chain, the company said in a statement. The statement was in response to the Canada Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise's forced labor complaint against the retailer (see 2404260040). CORE said it has closed the complaint review.
The Canada Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise withdrew complaints against Hugo Boss Canada and GobiMin, the agency announced on April 24 and April 25. Both companies participated in "good faith," with GobiMin divesting from a gold mine that allegedly used Uyghur forced labor, and Hugo Boss participating in a confidential dispute settlement process with the parties that filed the complaint against the company and providing a "satisfactory response or remedy to their allegations," a CORE spokesperson said in an emailed news release.
An international panel ruling on whether the U.S. had the right to punish a zinc mine in San Martín over labor violations agreed with Mexico that the violations happened before USMCA -- or T-MEC, as Mexico calls it -- came into force, and so the panel ruled it didn't have jurisdiction.
Lord Peter Mandelson, a former trade commissioner for the EU, told an audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that while trade policymakers were once naive on China, precluding competition from China is also not the best course of action for Europe's economy.
The Canada Border Services Agency will delay its next deployment of its Customs Assessment and Revenue Management system until October, the agency said last week. CBSA had been scheduled to launch the automated duty collection system on May 13, but will now only do so internally, pushing back the release of the trade-facing aspects of CARM.
China announced that it is "firmly opposed" to both the U.S. decision to open a new Section 301 investigation on allegedly unfair practices in China's maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors (see 2404170029) and President Joe Biden's call for a "tripling" of the existing Section 301 tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum (see 2404170040).
The EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council likely will continue if former President Donald Trump is reelected, European Commission officials said at a briefing April 3. The sixth TTC meeting takes place April 4-5 in Leuven, Belgium. It's the last of this political cycle, given U.S. and European elections later in the year. The EC doesn't expect too much disruption of its work, which includes deliverables on 6G, platforms, standardization, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, officials said.