Co-op, Unifor trade barbs as labour dispute carries on

The wall between Unifor and Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) is still up, figuratively and literally, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

After a week of arrests, a $100,000 fine, continued picketing and a contempt of court ruling, neither side seems ready to get back to bargaining on a new labour contract.

Unifor members were locked out from work at the Co-op oil refinery in Regina on Dec. 5.

Members from both sides simply dug in their heels on Friday.

Speaking on Gormley, FCL executive vice-president Vic Huard raised safety concerns about the multi-layered, fence-and-vehicle barrier the union has erected at one of the refinery’s gates.

Huard specifically called out Unifor national president Jerry Dias on the matter.

“We’re quite concerned with his, I’ll call it cavalier, dismissal on safety,” he said.

“If there is an emergency (at the refinery) when seconds count and lives are at risk, I would challenge his assertion that that (barricade) could be cleared quickly” if emergency vehicles needed to get in.

Huard said that “Mr. Dias makes much of picketing and peaceful picketing, he calls it. What’s going on isn’t picketing. This is a blockade.”

FCL has said if the union wants to get back to bargaining, it needs to remove such barriers from the refinery’s gates, and revert to a maximum of 10-minute delays for vehicles going in and out.

In other words, the company wants the union to follow a December court decision from Justice Janet McMurtry, which FCL says it interprets to mean picketers can hold up each trucker for up to 10 minutes to provide information.

Unifor’s Scott Doherty, executive assistant to Dias and the union’s lead negotiator, disputed Huard’s statements.

“I don’t think there are any safety concerns whatsoever. I think it’s just another ploy from the Co-op refinery to not want to get a settlement,” Doherty said.

“We would remove the barricade immediately if (Co-op) would get all of the (replacement workers) out of the workplace, or we get to a bargaining table and get a deal, which is really what needs to happen.”

Doherty believes FCL’s demand that barricades be removed is “another stumbling block to getting this deal done.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Adriana Christianson