Opposition to Criminalization of
Regina Co-op Workers' Struggle
Broad Support for the Just Stand of Federated Co-operative Workers in Defence of Their Pensions
Canadian president of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union, Rob Ashton, on
Regina picket line, January 25, 2020.
Workers from many different unions from across
the country have joined the members of Unifor
Local 594 on the picket line at the Federated
Co-operatives Limited (FCL) Refinery in Regina
in the past week. Statements in support of the
workers' bargaining demands and condemning the
police violence against the workers that
occurred on January 20 have come from the
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, the Canadian
Labour Congress, the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union, the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, the Canadian Federation of Nurses,
the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and
others. The over 800 refinery workers have been
locked out since December 5, two days after the
union served strike notice. The company has been
continuing to operate using replacement workers
and management had been granted an interim
injunction which said that striking workers
could only stop vehicles entering or leaving the
refinery for ten minutes. On January 20 Unifor
members from across the country joined the
picket line to prevent any movement into or out
of the facility. Regina police violently
attacked the picket line and arrested 14 people.
On January 22 Court of Queen's Bench Justice
Timothy Keene found Unifor in contempt of the
injunction and fined the union $100,000.
 
Members of the Alberta Union of Public Employees
(left) and United Nurses of Alberta join Co-op
refinery workers' picket lines.
What is at issue in the determined fight of
the Regina Co-op workers is their longstanding
defined benefit pension plan. The company has
declared that the existing defined benefit
pension plan is not "sustainable" and demands
that the workers make a "choice" between a plan
that significantly increases what the workers
contribute to the plan and/or replaces the
current plan with a defined contribution plan.
In refusing to make this concession the refinery
workers are defending not only their own rights
but the rights of all in the face of a concerted
attack on pensions by employers, both in the
private and public sectors, and on the part of
the federal government in terms of legislation
on workers' pensions when corporations file for
bankruptcy, and the Canada Pension Plan.
 In a modern
Canada pensions are a right that belongs to
workers by virtue of their contributions to the
economy. In fact, all Canadians have a right to
pensions which provide security in
retirement by
virtue of being human. In a modern socialized
economy government has a social responsibility
to guarantee pensions for all. As part of the
anti-social offensive employers and government
are attacking workers' rights not only to
adequate pensions, but also to maintain their
already negotiated working conditions, including
pensions. Employers do so on the grounds that in
order to be competitive they must deprive the
working class of even more of the value that its
labour produces, and governments on the basis
that it is the claims of the rich and not the
people that it must satisfy. In recent years the
pensions of many workers, including municipal
workers in Labrador, Quebec City, Saskatoon, and
industrial workers in many sectors, have come
under attack and the working class is well aware
that it is the right of all to security in
retirement that is under attack. The fight of
the Regina Co-op workers to defend their
pensions is a fight for pensions for all.
On January 24 striking workers and their
supporters set up a secondary picket at the FCL
fuel terminal in Carseland, Alberta, stopping
fuel trucks from entering and exiting with fuel
destined for Co-op gas bars in Alberta and
British Columbia. The workers are demanding that
FCL return to the bargaining table and negotiate
a collective agreement that is acceptable to
them and which cannot contain the destruction of
the already agreed to pension plan. The company
has said that it will not return to the
bargaining table as long as the union is
"breaking the law" and preventing movement into
and out of the refinery to which the union has
responded that it will take down the barricades
when the company stops using scabs to keep the
refinery operating.
 
Workers from different sectors and regions join
Co-op refinery workers in secondary picketing at
Co-op Refinery location in Carseland, photos
from January 24, 2020.
The company is relying on the court injunction
and police violence to portray the striking
workers as criminals to confuse public opinion
and diminish support for the workers. It is also
trying to split the working class, saying that
because an increasing number of workers in
Canada have been forced to accept pensions that
are inferior to those of the refinery workers,
the refinery workers should be "fair" and agree
to an inferior plan. In response, the mass
mobilization of workers from all sectors to
stand with the Co-op workers is the expression
of the unity of the working class in action in
defence of workers' pensions and the rights of
all to security in retirement.
This article was published in
Number 3 - January 29, 2020
Article Link:
Opposition to Criminalization of
Regina Co-op Workers' Struggle: Broad Support for the Just Stand of Federated Co-operative Workers In Defence of Their Pensions
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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