A scaffolding company that has continued to send workers to the Co-op refinery through the lockout says its employees are being harassed and victimized.
Brock Canada Inc.’s regional president, Joe Brickner, said some of its workers were featured in a video put up by Unifor last week claiming to show the full names of “scabs” or replacement workers along with videos of people walking into the refinery, and photos which appear to be taken from social media.
Brickner called the video “disgusting” and said the company’s employees have been getting threats.
“There’s some explicit language there I won’t repeat here but, essentially, threatening them, knowing where they live, ‘better be careful’ — those kinds of comments,” Brickner said.
In a news release, the company also said a worker’s spouse is so scared that they’ve moved out of their home.
Brickner said police reports have been filed over the harassment, and Brock Canada’s legal team has been in contact with Unifor and asked them to cease and desist such actions.
Unifor spokespeople have disagreed with the comparison in the past, but Brickner called the video doxxing.
“These employees have the right to a safe workplace; they have the right to not be threatened. What they’re doing is what they’re paid to do, working underneath their collective agreements to go to work, and unfortunately they’re being dragged into this,” said Brickner.
The scaffolding workers with Brock Canada are part of the Carpenters’ Union Local 1985, and in the union’s agreement with Brock, Brickner said they can’t stop work because of another union’s picket line.
The company’s insulation workers are under a different agreement and they decided not to cross Unifor’s picket line, so Brickner said they were laid off because there wasn’t work for them to do.
Brickner said the company has had to lay off many people because of the dispute between the refinery and Unifor.
“We’re all caught up in this dispute, and it’s not just one-sided,” said Brickner.
Brickner said Brock Canada has been providing scaffolding and other services at the refinery for more than 25 years, and that’s the work its people have continued to do.
Scott Doherty, the executive assistant to Unifor’s national president, admitted on Gormley that some of the people on the video are Brock employees.
Asked why the union considers them replacement workers, Doherty replied: “Because they’re doing the work that we would be doing in the refinery and have been and that makes them scabs. They’re doing work that our members would be doing if we weren’t locked out.”
Doherty said the Brock employees were identified on the video because they were doing work done by locked-out employees.
“They shouldn’t be doing our work,” he said. “It’s about putting pressure on people. We don’t want anything to happen to them. We want this dispute to end; that’s what we want.”
— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick