Co-op refinery, Unifor to resume bargaining Friday

The sides in the labour dispute at the Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC) are to return to the bargaining table Friday — and Carla McCrie can’t wait.

“That’s the only place that we can get our people back to work and back off that (picket) line, so having that table discussion is what we need and that’s the place we need to go,” McCrie said after Unifor held a rally Thursday outside the Legislative Building.

“It makes me feel like what we’ve done is really push our company to come back to the table. This is what we needed to do.”

Talks to end the 56-day lockout are to start at 9 a.m., at the Hotel Saskatchewan.

“Both parties want to resolve this, so I’m not terribly surprised,” Scott Doherty, the executive assistant to Unifor national president Jerry Dias, said Thursday before the noon-hour rally.

“I’m surprised it took so long to get to the table since we’ve been ready to do it for a week, but this has been a difficult dispute and still has the makings of continuing to be a difficult dispute if we can’t get a deal done (Friday).”

Negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement initially stalled when the union declared an impasse Sept. 27. The sides met with a mediator in November, but that didn’t result in an agreement, either.

The refinery locked out unionized employees Dec. 5 after Unifor issued strike notice. Replacement workers and managers have been operating the plant since the lockout began.

On Friday, the first meaningful talks in months are to take place.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Doherty said. “I’ve said all along that this dispute would be resolved at the bargaining table and I think the parties need to get in a room.

“Obviously there are some difficult conversations that need to take place, but I think we can get to a point where both parties can reach a compromise and end this dispute.”

In a media release Thursday, the refinery said the meeting Friday “is being held based on the mutual understanding that Unifor will follow Justice (Janet) McMurtry’s final court injunction order, allowing all vehicles entry and exit from the CRC.

“This includes all CRC gates, the Refinery Business Office and McDonald Street Terminal.”

The injunction issued by McMurtry limited the amount of time picketers could delay vehicles at the refinery gates to a maximum of 10 minutes. If the drivers of the vehicles said they didn’t want to hear the union’s message, they were to be allowed through immediately.

The union was found in contempt of that order and fined $100,000 on Jan. 22. The dispute also has included the arrests of 14 picketers, including Dias.

During the dispute, the union erected fences at the refinery, blocking access to the facility. Unifor also has barricaded Co-op properties in Regina, Weyburn and Carseland, Alta.

Unifor made the first move Wednesday, inviting representatives of Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) back to the bargaining table and offering to remove all of the barricades at the refinery.

On Thursday, the barricades were still in place.

“They’ll be down and there will be free access in and out of the refinery starting at 9 o’clock (Friday) morning,” Doherty said. “We’ll be doing some work to make sure that that happens and at 9 o’clock (Friday) morning we’ll be following the court order that came out.”

Asked if that meant vehicles would be delayed for 10 minutes — or less, if the driver doesn’t want to listen — Doherty replied: “We’re going to comply with the order.”

McCrie said the union was “forced into” putting up the fences by the actions of the company, which continually has called the barricades illegal. McCrie said the removal of the fencing will indicate a step forward in the dispute.

“It’s good that that’s coming down if that means it gets us back to the table, because that is the end goal,” she said. “We can’t lose sight that that is what we’re trying to do here.

“It’s great that everything else is happening, but at the end of the day, we want to get 730 families back to work and their lives sorted back out again.”

On Wednesday, Dias twice asked the Saskatchewan government to get involved in the dispute.

The Unifor president asked Premier Scott Moe to give the sides 48 hours to find a resolution. If a settlement couldn’t be reached after those two days, Dias urged the premier to introduce binding arbitration legislation that would send the workers back into the refinery by Monday.

The premier’s office responded to Dias’ comments by saying it hadn’t received a formal proposal for arbitration from the union. On Thursday, Doherty admitted Unifor hasn’t made that proposal — and it will decide whether to do so only after seeing how bargaining goes.

On Jan. 21, the union removed its pre-conditions for bargaining, most notably its demand that the company not touch the employees’ pension plan. Discussions on that topic, as well as other outstanding issues, are to begin in earnest Friday.

“The company has continued to make this dispute about us not paying into our pension, ignoring the fact that they want to cut our retirement nestegg in half,” Kevin Bittman, the president of Unifor Local 594, said during Thursday’s rally.

“We have committed to talking about contributing to our pension, so (Friday) we will see, with the discussions at the table, what their true intentions are.”

Doherty said the union will talk with the company “as long as we have to to get a deal done or until talks break off.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Adriana Christianson and Joseph Ho