Unifor members were picketing the Southland Co-op's Assiniboia Agro Centre on Highway Two on the morning of March 11, 2020. They were supporting the Unifor workers who have been locked out from the Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina since December 5. In their words "Unifor 594 has offered the FCL tens of millions of annual savings during mediation and they turned it down. They chose instead to continue this divisive lockout and hurt Saskatchewan's economy and put the fuel supply at risk."
Correspondingly, Jason G. Antonio in MooseJawToday reported on Unifor Local 594 members from the Regina Co-op Refinery who were picketing the Co-op gas station at the corner Thatcher Drive East and Ninth Avenue Northeast in Moose Jaw on March 11.
The job actions in Assiniboia and Moose Jaw on March 11 are indications on how little has changed in relation to the disagreements between Saskatchewan’s Unifor members and FCL management. Almost 800 workers had been locked out from the Co-op Refinery since December. The provincial government had delegated mediator Vince Ready to introduce a discussion between both sides, but the lockout has continued without any resolutions in sight. The two opposing sides in this labour dispute have been battling over changes to the worker’s pension plan along with other issues such as safety and fairness over profit sharing.
From their point of view, the FCL has said that Unifor has erected illegal blockades throughout Western Canada this winter, including Regina, Saskatoon, Carseland Alberta, Prince George and in Winnipeg.
“These latest antics are disappointing, but after everything Unifor has done, they’re unfortunately not surprising,” said Scott Banda, CEO of Federated Co-operatives Limited in February. “We’re taking the appointment of a special mediator and the resumption of bargaining next week very seriously. All we ask is that our union partners in this negotiation will do the same and end these illegal blockades.”
The FCL is angry at Unifor for blockading Regina’s Co-op Refinery Complex, the FCL fuel terminal in Carseland and for preventing Co-op fuel trucks from accessing third-party terminals in Winnipeg and Prince George. The FCL said they will continue to do their utmost in supplying fuel for their customers. However, the FCL claims that Unifor’s blockading measures have led to intermittent fuel outages. Moreover, the CRC is operating at 90 per cent capacity, but according to the FCL, Unifor is preventing the delivery of fuel in Western Canada.
According to the union, the central issue of this ongoing labour disagreement between the FCL and Unifor is over pension security. The union said every worker should have a choice over their pension plans along with added security to protect their individual selections.
Workers at the refinery were given a choice between a defined benefit plan, or they could switch to a defined contribution plan if they chose to do so. However, FCL wanted to end the defined benefit plan, or as Unifor stated: “Reduce it to a gutted version of what we were promised.”
The union said they want to guarantee pension security for those who want to stay in the DB pension plan as they were assured when they began working at the Co-op Refinery Complex. Unifor have pointed at a quote made by the executive vice-president of FCL, Vic Huard, during Unifor’s last contract negotiation guaranteeing pension security. “To be perfectly clear, every single employee who currently is in the defined benefits plan will remain in that plan from now until when they retire,” Huard stated.
The union also maintained the executive at the FCL haven’t been fairly distributing the profits made by Co-op with their employees and their network of retail outlets. In response, the FCL said they had returned most of their profits to local Co-ops, including $649 million in 2019. Also, the FCL said that Unifor had often discussed the $2.5 billion made in profits in recent years, yet they say the union had failed to mention the $2 billion which had been reinvested back into local Co-ops.
