‘The boycott is going to ramp up’: Barricades back up at refinery

Tensions are on the rise as the dispute between Unifor and Federated Co-operatives Limited enters day 58.

Despite the two groups meeting Friday to resume bargaining talks, Scott Doherty, Executive Assistant to Unifor’s National President and lead negotiator, believes the company has no interest in reaching a deal with the employees.

“I don’t understand why but we are farther away than we were for sure,” Doherty said on Saturday, surrounded by locked out employees.

Doherty said the barricades have been put back up and could escalate their actions across Canada.

“Our members are strong on these lines, we’re going to make sure that across this entire country, they’re going feel the wrath of Unifor and the boycott is going to ramp up,” Doherty said. “We are done trying to move and be reasonable around making concessions.”

Doherty said a formal request was made Saturday morning for Premier Scott Moe and the Saskatchewan government to intervene and enforce a binding arbitration process.

“It’s time for you to show leadership. This dispute has to end,” Doherty said.

According to a news release from FCL, while talks have broken down, “We are confident there is a path to a deal.”

FCL said it won’t negotiate until the barricades are taken down again.

Before Friday’s negotiations took place, Doherty noted how Unifor choose to drop all their preconditions and got rid of their barricades so both sides would agree to meet.

Doherty said Unifor emailed their most recent proposal on Wednesday but the company said they couldn’t meet until Friday.

Doherty said the company came back requesting concessions that it had taken off the table months ago.

“They brought back concessions that said we had to give up operators – master operator position eliminated – maintenance people gone, operational changes that eliminated jobs and were further concessions than what we had prior to this,” Doherty said.

Unifor went live on Facebook late Friday night and voiced frustrations with how the latest bargaining talks had progressed. In the video, Doherty said the union put forward a proposal that included millions of dollars in savings in the defined benefit pension plan, including six per cent contributions from the employees and pension solvency changes that, in Unifor’s estimates, would save $12M per year in the collective agreement.

“Now more than ever, it’s evident this greedy employer has no interest in getting a deal. They have every interest in trying to break this union and make this union not have a pension plan,” Doherty said in the video.

On Saturday, Doherty said the union put forward another proposal and they didn’t get a response from FCL until Friday at 10 p.m.

“They wanted to get in as many trucks in and out as they could and they wanted to fill the scab camp kitchen because they had no intentions of ever getting a deal (Friday), they had no intentions of ending this dispute,” Doherty said. “They’re answer to us was, ‘We have zero interest in your proposal.’ ”

There is a court injunction in place that only allows locked out employees to stop trucks for a maximum of 10 minutes or if they request to advance but Unifor has been fined in the past for not following the order.

The lockout first began back on Dec. 5.