Lockout at Co-op Refinery in
Regina
Denounce the Criminalization of Co-op Refinery Workers
Co-op Refinery workers, members of Unifor Local 594 rally at
Saskatchewan legislature, January 30, 2020.
Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) locked out
the
workers at its refinery in Regina on December 5, two days after the
workers voted to strike rather than accept the company's bargaining
demand that the workers agree to a significant reduction in their
pensions. The company had, in previous bargaining, committed to
maintaining the
defined benefits pension plan that had been agreed to in negotiations
years ago.
The conditions for the company to continue
operations in
the event of a strike or lockout had been put in place weeks before the
company's action, with the building of work camps to house replacement
workers flown in to the refinery so as to render the workers' defence
of their rights ineffectual.
Throughout the lockout FCL has received
the full support of the state against the workers. The company was
awarded an injunction requiring that picketers hold up trucks entering
or leaving the refinery for no more than ten minutes. Late in January
the Co-op workers were joined by hundreds of workers from other unions,
as well as Unifor members from across the country, to mount an
effective picket, erecting barricades and preventing movement into and
out of the refinery. Several participants, including local and national
officers of Unifor, were arrested in those mass actions.
Steelworkers join Co-op refinery workers on the picket line, February
1, 2020, one of many solidarity delegations received by the locked out
workers.
Unifor workers and their supporters have also
blocked
movement into and out of the FCL fuel storage facility in Carseland,
about 65 kilometres southeast of Calgary, erecting fences and
restricting the access of vehicles into and out of the facility. This
led to periodic fuel outages at Co-op gas bars and cardlocks in western
Canada. The company has imposed fuel restrictions at its cardlocks of
300 litres of diesel and 100 litres of gasoline. Locked out workers are
rightly blaming FCL dictate for stealing their negotiated defined
benefits pension plan and the Saskatchewan government's refusal to
force FCL to negotiate in good faith for the gas shortages. They uphold
their right to wage an effective struggle that actually blocks the
company's attempt to wreck their negotiated pensions and benefits by
refusing to negotiate, flying scabs into the refinery at great risk to
the safety of the community and relying on the prerogative powers of
the state to crush the workers and their unions.
On February 6, Justice Glenda Campbell in Calgary
granted
the company's application for an injunction restricting picketing at
the Carseland facility and requiring that workers remove barricades,
and the following day amended the injunction to allow police to remove
the barricades if the workers did not do so themselves. In Regina, on
February 7 police blocked access on Ninth Avenue North between McDonald
and Winnipeg streets to all picketers while escorting Co-op trucks
through to the refinery, checking off drivers' names from a list
supplied by FCL. Police then took the additional step of removing the
workers' warming and bathroom facilities from the sites.
Police escorting Co-op trucks through workers' picket lines, February
7, 2020.
A decision by Justice Neil Robertson is pending in
response to the company's demand that the local union be fined a
million dollars plus $100,000 per day as long as the injunction is not
"obeyed" and that Local 594 President Kevin Bittman and Vice-President
Lance Holowachuk be jailed for 90 days and 30 days respectively if they
do not
comply with the court order to remove the barricades that were erected
on January 20.
On February 6, National union leader Jerry Dias
called on Premier Scott Moe and FCL to bring an immediate end to the
dispute by granting an independent provincially-appointed mediator the
power to arbitrate if the parties are unable to come to an
agreement after seven days of bargaining. The union's position was
that if the employer immediately removed replacement workers from the
refinery and agreed to negotiate, the picket lines would be taken down
and the workers would return to work as early as Monday, February 10.
Once again the company refused to return to negotiations. FCL
is still refusing to do so, claiming that until the barricade is
removed it will not negotiate, and refusing to remove the scabs.
Secondary picket at Co-op facility in Dryden Ontario supporting Regina
Co-op refinery workers, February 4, 2020.
This article was published in
Number 5 - February 12, 2020
Article Link:
Lockout at Co-op Refinery in
Regina: Denounce the Criminalization of Co-op Refinery Workers
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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