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“We and the [UTA] put forward suggestions to try and improve the immediate economic concerns of our members. It became clear throughout the discussions that there was nothing like that on the table in the short term,” Mr. McGarrigle said.

Mr. McGarrigle said Unifor remains willing to return to the table at any time but the priority would be to address those monitory concerns in the short term. But complicating things is the lack of a single organization to represent the interests of the 12 different trucking companies at the port that the Unifor members work for and the more than 150 that the UTA members work for at the bargaining table, he said.

“We have Port Metro Vancouver in the background, and certainly they’re a major player. But so are the employers. We all need to be around the table,” he said.

In the meantime, Port Metro Vancouver said it was beefing up security Monday in response to the additional picketers.

Port Metro Vancouver Chief Executive Robin Silvester said the striking truckers are causing containers to pile up at the port. The local trucking industry moves roughly half of the container at the port each year, or roughly 1.3 million containers annually.

“The impact of truckers walking off the job is in the order of about $885-million per week,” Mr. Silvester said in a statement late on Sunday. “Goods are not moving and that is bad news for consumers and businesses.”

The Unifor-VCTA members served strike notice last week before the federal minister of transport, Lisa Raitt, appointed an independent review to be conducted on the dispute. The UTA workers have been off the job since Feb. 26.