STRIKERS JUGGLE EMOTIONS
Union rally boisterous amid quieter worries dispute could be long
Striking Unifor members gathered outside the Queensbury Convention Centre for a rally on Friday as members of the Saskatchewan Party met inside and watched.
On the first day of picketing outside Saskpower’s Regina headquarters, Karen Thompson was afraid.
She’s a single parent. Her youngest son, Malachi, was marching alongside her in a matching orange vest. He had a day off school to be with his mom as she strikes from her 15-year job at Saskpower.
Thompson said she wants 13-year-old Malachi to learn “what real life is all about.”
“He needs to know that the government doesn’t stand for unions,” she said. “It’s not fair that the government would reject our offers and say no, because they don’t realize there’s single parents out here, a lot of families out here that need the finances.”
And finances for Thompson are tight. Like the hundreds of other Unifor members who manned the picket lines over Friday ’s morning shift, she now has to live on $300 a week in strike pay.
She thinks she can last about a month.
“It’s hard to live with the money that we get. But you know what, if I don’t do it I won’t have nothing,” Thompson said. “So I’m going to fight for what I believe in.”
Some 4,500 Unifor members at Saskpower, Sasktel, Saskenergy, Saskwater, the Water Security Agency and two Sasktel subsidiaries officially went on strike at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning after an impasse at the bargaining table. Picketers suffered through cold, drizzly weather and financial worries that left many hoping they’d soon have a deal.
They turned out by the hundreds to hear Unifor national president Jerry Dias blame their plight on the government. He gave a combative speech right in front of Regina’s Queensbury Convention Centre, where the Saskatchewan Party is holding its convention this weekend.
“This strike hasn’t been called by Unifor. It’s been called by the premier of the province of Saskatchewan,” Dias told a crowd of supporters carrying flags and placards bearing the premier’s likeness. “And I say, Scott Moe, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Dias said the dispute is the largest labour disruption in the sixyear history of Unifor. It’s also — by far — the largest job action during the Saskatchewan Party’s term in power.
Unifor has blamed the government, accusing it of imposing a “mandate” on the Crowns and preventing management from offering a better deal.
The most recent Crown offer still included two years of flat wages. Unifor is insisting on three years of two-per-cent hikes, plus lump sums for past years without a contract.
Saskatchewan Party members watched from the convention centre as Dias spoke. Minister of Highways and Infrastructure Greg Ottenbreit was visible through the upper-floor window. He might have heard Dias call his party leader “ruthless.”
“Nobody wants to be here. Nobody wants to be on strike,” said Dias. “But there’s a time in your lives where we have to stand up for what’s right.”
Aaron Lamontagne certainly doesn’t want to be on strike. He and his wife both work for Sasktel. They’re taking a major pay cut as they try to raise a growing family.
“We’ve got a 19-month-old at home who just started daycare about two months ago, so it’s hard for that trying to deal with daycare now and both of us have no job,” he said.
Strike pay isn’t enough to pay the bills.
“We’ll be going into debt,” he said. “We’ll have to use lines of credit.”
He expects the strike will drag out for weeks. He can handle that. But he doubts he can hold out for months. If the strike is still ongoing by then, he’ll look for a new job.
But Dias thinks financial pressure on the Crowns also will be heavy.
“For every day we’re on the picket line, there will be less revenues to the Crowns and less revenues for the province than it would cost for the life of this entire collective agreement,” Dias said at a Thursday news conference. “So why a government would choose to lose more money and profitability in a day than it would cost to pay the increases makes no sense.”
Crown CEOS gathered for their own news conference on Friday, where Sasktel confirmed on that a lengthy strike would mean a significant loss of revenue.
“Depending on how long the strike goes on, it will obviously have impacts,” Sasktel CEO Doug Burnett said.
“Initially, our plan is to discontinue new installs, so you can imagine that that will have some impacts on our financial results.
“I can’t give you definitive numbers, but it is not insignificant.”
The other Crowns are expecting slimmer losses, though Saskenergy will miss new revenue it might have earned from hooking up new customers. But so long as gas keeps flowing through the distribution system, money will keep flowing into its coffers. Saskenergy CEO Ken From said he has the staff to ensure that happens safely.
“Basically the same people that were operating the system yesterday are operating it today, and will continue to operate it in the future,” From said.
Each employer has negotiated essential services agreements that ensure unionized workers needed to protect public safety stay on the job. For Saskenergy, that means about 200 trained technicians at work daily to keep the gas running. For Saskpower, it means 14 at the Outage Centre. Sasktel hasn’t kept Unifor members on, though there’s a deal to respond to any emergencies.
All the CEOS said they’re satisfied the deals are sufficient to keep the public safe.
But a wide range of non-essential services will be disrupted or suspended during the strike. That includes customer support hotlines, permitting for water projects and new service hookups for phone, internet, TV and natural gas.
The unions declined to comment on the bargaining process, which has seen little movement since talks on Sept. 26.
But Blair Swystun, CEO of Crown Investments Corporation, responded to the union argument that the government is leaving management little leeway.
“While there is a monetary framework, there certainly is flexibility for each management team to bargain,” he said.
“And there’s other elements to collective agreements beyond monetary, so lots of non-monetary elements to an agreement as well.”
He said management is ready to come back to the table whenever the union is ready. He said they’ve made “fair and reasonable offers.”
As cold, wet and worried as they were on Friday, the workers on the picket lines don’t agree. Thompson said she works hard. She isn’t lazy. She’s “ticked off ” at what she’s being offered.
And as she marches with her co-workers, she feels a sense of solidarity.
“I’m really happy to be with them,” Thompson said, “because we all believe in the same thing.”