April 7, 2013 — A grassroots organization for lobster fishermen has a new president and a new plan.
The lobster fishery “is the backbone of the economy of our area,” John Crandall Nickerson, the newly elected president of the 1688 Professional Lobster Fishermen Association, said Thursday.
He takes up the post from founder James Mood, who got the organization going in 2012, when lobster prices were so low the group called for captains to tie up their boats and demand a better wage.
Low lobster prices result in untold woe in the communities surrounding lobster-rich southwestern Nova Scotia, but does going out on strike really help?
“Strikes might gain you attention, … but all it does is pit one fisherman against another fisherman,” Nickerson said. “You cause a lot of bad feelings, so I don’t feel that that’s the way I would … suggest that it should go.”
Nickerson has plenty of experince in the field. He has fished for lobster, driven truckloads of lobster to market and worked as a processing plant manager. Now he sells lobster packing materials.
Read the full story at the Halifax Chronicle Herald