Unifor workers at five Crowns not at work Tuesday

While unionized employees of five Crown corporations returned to the picket line Tuesday, workers at two other Crowns returned to work.

Scott Doherty, the executive assistant to Unifor national president Jerry Dias, said union locals representing employees at SaskWater and the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency opted to go back to work.

“The SaskWater local and the Water Security Agency local both felt that it was necessary for their members to go to work (Tuesday) and decide what they’re going to do (Wednesday) and whether or not they’re going to return to job action or continue to go back to work,” Doherty said. “That’s their determination.”

The union went on strike on Friday after saying negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement had reached an impasse.

On Monday, Unifor said all of the striking employees of the seven Crowns — SaskWater, the Water Security Agency, SaskTel, SaskEnergy, SaskPower, SecurTek and Directwest — would return to work Tuesday on a work-to-rule basis.

The tactic, a union official said at the time, was to show Unifor could be unpredictable.

But SaskTel torpedoed those plans, announcing the 2,800 SaskTel employees represented by Unifor wouldn’t be allowed back. It claimed threats of intermittent walkouts would make it too difficult to maintain service.

SaskEnergy and SaskPower initially said their employees who are Unifor members would be allowed to return to work Tuesday, but that didn’t happen. A Unifor local president said in a media release early Tuesday that union members who work at those two Crowns wouldn’t be going back to their jobs.

“We’re going to stay on the picket line in solidarity with SaskTel and to ensure that our own membership is not divided by the employer,” said Ian Davidson, whose local represents workers at SaskEnergy and SaskPower.

While some of their brethren were on the picket line, the unionized employees of SaskWater and the Water Security Agency did return to their jobs Tuesday.

“Getting their message to the members was difficult, to make sure that they knew exactly what was going on,” Doherty said when asked why the locals made that choice.

“It was late in the day (Monday) that SaskTel was locked out and we were all strategizing. (The locals) just felt it was necessary to continue to stay the course of what the message was to their members, to return to work (Tuesday).

“The (union local at the) Water Security Agency is still deciding what they want to do, but I know that the water group is going to be back on the picket line (Wednesday).”

On the picket line Tuesday, SaskTel employee Robert Baron said he and his co-members are still upset with the provincial government’s most recent offer.

“It is just completely unacceptable for the people doing the work to swallow that kind of deal,” he said, referring to a proposed contract that didn’t have any wage increases over the first two years of the deal.

Baron is a trunking and switching technician with SaskTel. He said he has worked 20 years for the province’s Crowns.

“We need the people of Saskatchewan to stand up for us and to stand up for fair wages for their workers and for hard-working Saskatchewan families,” he said. “It is not our choice to be out here. All we’re asking for is a fair deal. We’re not greedy Crown workers.”

Approximately 4,450 workers at six Crown corporations and one Crown agency began striking Friday. That number reportedly comprises 2,800 workers at SaskTel, 800 at SaskEnergy, 520 at SaskPower, 120 at the Water Security Agency, 85 at SaskWater, 70 at SecurTek and 60 at Directwest.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Evan Radford