Just before the 6 April starting date of the Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab fishery season in eastern Canada – a slight delay from the originally announced 1 April starting date – harvesters are celebrating policy changes that came in the wake of widespread protests and ineffective pricing negotiations between the harvester union and processors.
The Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) celebrated a victory on 22 March after the government of Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to make policy changes that will allow harvesters in the province to sell to buyers using external processing.
“Currently, all buyers must operate and process inside the province,” FFAW Director of Public Affairs Courtney Glode told SeafoodSource.
The rule change will instead allow for buyers outside the province to purchase crab in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Harvesters cannot ship their product outside the province, but outside buyers can apply to the province for a buyer’s license to export unprocessed product,” Glode said. “Therefore, if a buyer does this, a harvester could then sell to the approved outside buyer.”
The government also agreed to undertake an independent review of provincial licensing policy and to implement a new committee that will monitor processing capacity during the crab season.
The changes came after widespread protests by fishermen took place at a number of government buildings in the province, as they called for more competition between processors and higher processing capacity.
“When fish harvesters cannot find a buyer for their catch, we have a serious problem,” FFAW President Greg Pretty said in a release during the protests. “Fish harvesters in our province have been disadvantaged long enough. The situation has gotten so severe in recent years that a very large number are now facing imminent bankruptcy due to the cartel-like environment processing companies enjoy here in Newfoundland and Labrador.”
FFAW claimed there was no accountability for processing companies and that the business environment has operated with an anti-harvester stance, with plants choosing not to process certain species, refusing to purchase from certain harvesters, giving harvesters strict weekly limits, and conducting unfounded deductions.
“More competition and market access for harvesters is needed. We want free enterprise,” John Efford, who led the protests, said.
Amid the protests, the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) said placing the blame for the fishery’s issues on processors was unfair and that additional capacity will only hurt the livelihoods of plant workers and will do little to change pricing.
“It slices the same size pie into additional pieces, and the result is each worker gets less of the pie,” ASP said in a release. “The issuance of new processing licenses or the lifting of current caps would result in work being transferred between processing facilities and communities; it does not achieve new employment opportunities. The harvesters’ hope is that it results in a higher price for them without reference to what the export market will bear. The result is a destruction of value for the province overall.”
Despite the processing association's objections, the protests were ultimately effective and will free up more licenses for in-province processing, according to Glode.
“The increased capacity provincially, we believe, will have the most noticeable and immediate impact on harvesters,” Glode said. “It’s better for everyone when the product stays in the province, and allowing smaller plants to take more product, as well as issuing new licenses to those who want to process more species, should be encouraged and supported by the provincial government.”
In Newfoundland and Labrador, harvesters are, by law, paid a minimum amount for their catch, and that amount is determined either through negotiations or, if those negotiations fail, a price-setting panel.
Negotiations between FFAW and ASP have deadlocked in each of the last two years, and in 2023, the fishery faced its lowest minimum snow crab price in a decade. The low price had harvesters refusing to fish, and it took six weeks of negotiations to get them on the water. The province then extended the snow crab season multiple times to avoid leaving large amounts of the fishery’s quota in the water.
That dispute led to arbitration requiring FFAW to pay damages incurred by processors, after the ASP claimed FFAW violated the price-setting process and the province’s rules around collective bargaining.
Going into the 2024 season, the negotiations have once again failed, and the price will be decided by the price-setting panel. The parties involved now have until 4 p.m. NST on 27 March to submit information to the price-setting panel, which will, in turn, implement a price for the fishing season.
But this year, the negotiations now have the added caveat of harvesters potentially being able to sell outside the province.
“In our opinion, more competition is good for harvesters and good for the industry,” Glode said. “Our opinion is also that prices paid should be based on actual market prices received, and we are still working towards a market-based pricing system for harvesters.”
Additionally, there will be an even larger snow crab quota for Newfoundland fishers in 2024. Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced the overall total allowable catch (TAC) for the province will be 57,586 metric tons (MT), a 5.2 percent increase from 2023 in large part due to the fact the DFO announced its stock assessments found 2024's numbers remain on par with the stock in 2023.
The snow crab quota has been at a high level since 2022, when the TAC reached 50,460 MT – roughly 25 million more pounds of snow crab than was available in 2021. The high quota and market uncertainty caused the price of snow crab to plummet, one of the root causes of the friction between the ASP and FFAW.
