Striking Labatt workers charged with violating injunction

The cases of 10 Labatt employees who were involved in a wildcat strike in St. John’s were called in provincial court Friday.

Andre Rene Adams, Daniel C. Follett, Danny Follett, Jeffrey Joseph Hanlon, Robert Joseph Hickey, Francis Joseph O'Neill, Leslie Errol Squires, Sterling Sutton, Edmund Tucker and Stephen Walsh are accused of violating a court injunction while on the picket line.

Daniel C. Follett, Hanlon, Squires and Tucker each face two counts of unlawfully disobeying an order of the court, while the others face single counts.

Daniel C. Follett is also charged with one count of assault.

Lawyer Sheila Greene — who was in court representing the accused workers — entered not guilty pleas for Follett. His half-day trial has been set for July 17.

Greene and Crown prosecutor Shawn Patten agreed to postpone the other men’s cases to May 21.

The men were said to have breached a court injunction, handed down in April 2013, when the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that Labatt workers engaged in the strike could not block access to the company’s St. John’s facility.

Labatt Breweries Newfoundland had applied to the court for the injunction against members of Local 7004 of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE) as a result of incidents that happened near the entrance of the building.

The judge had ruled that workers were not permitted to obstruct peo- ple coming and going from the Labatt building on Leslie Street. He also ordered that they take down tents which they have set up and remove all other objects they had brought to the area where they had been picketing since March 25, 2013.

The strike was resolved in February of this year.