Talks that could end refinery lockout set to begin Friday

Representatives of Unifor and the Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC) are to sit down Friday morning in hopes of ending a 57-day lockout.

After weeks of back and forth, barricades, court appearances, an injunction, a $100,000 fine and even 14 arrests, the parties are to resume negotiations for the first time since November.

“(Friday) at 9 in the morning, we will be at the only place that this thing can end — the bargaining table,” Unifor Local 594 president Kevin Bittman said during a rally Thursday outside the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.

Talks on a new collective bargaining agreement initially broke down in September, when the union declared an impasse. Meetings with a mediator in November didn’t help and the refinery locked out unionized employees on Dec. 5, shortly after the workers issued strike notice.

Replacement workers and managers have been operating the refinery since the lockout began.

The union set up a picket line at the facility, but escalated things by erecting fences to block the refinery’s gates. Unifor also fenced in Co-op properties in Regina and Weyburn for a day.

The fences at the refinery are to come down Friday by 9 a.m., when the parties are to begin a bargaining session at the Hotel Saskatchewan.

“There’s only so many tools in our toolbag as the workers,” Carla McCrie, a process operator at the refinery, said Thursday when asked about the fencing. “We don’t have the same kind of resources that the company does and so that is something that we needed to do.

“It’s one of the things we had to do in order to get this here. It is my belief that if we had not put up those barricades, we would not be sitting down at the table (Friday).”

Scott Doherty, the executive assistant to Unifor national president Jerry Dias, said all of the gates at the refinery will be open to traffic Friday in compliance with the injunction issued earlier this month.

“We’ll be respecting the order and dealing with it with just picketers,” said Doherty, who also has suggested that vehicles each can expect to wait up to 10 minutes — the maximum amount of time allowed under the court order.

As well, Doherty said the union will continue its blockade of a Co-op property in Carseland, Alta., and of a fuel depot in Winnipeg frequented by Co-op trucks. Those weren’t covered by the injunction.

On Wednesday and again on Thursday, union officials called on Premier Scott Moe to get involved if negotiations don’t result in a deal.

Dias suggested that Moe should give the parties 48 hours to negotiate a deal. If one isn’t reached by then, the union wants the premier to introduce binding arbitration legislation to get the workers back into the refinery.

“We’re hopeful and I’m optimistic that we’re going to get a deal done over the next couple of days,” Doherty said. “Co-op has come to the table and we’re going to take that as a good sign.

“But obviously this has been a long dispute and it has been a bitter dispute, so we want Moe to pay attention to what’s happening.”

More to come.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Adriana Christianson