SASKATOON – Last week, for the first time in its half-century relationship with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the Grain Services Union launched a company-wide strike.
Picket lines were generally orderly and peaceful, allowing farmers and other customers to cross freely, but the company and the union disagreed sharply on what effect the strike was having.
On Monday this week, Pool management reported that 230 of the company’s 413 elevator points were operating, plus 21 of its 25 farm service centres, two of the three seed cleaning plants, all livestock yards and the Western Producer.
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The union, however, maintained that more than 75 percent of Pool facilities are not operating and most of the rest are doing little business. “If it has a human in it, management calls it open,” said GSU secretary-manager Hugh Wagner.
A Pool communique said the number of operating elevators was verified by computerized reports of their daily transactions. The Pool said its elevators handled more than 110,000 tonnes of grain during the first three days of the strike, adding that the 230 open elevators represent 60 percent of the Pool’s total operating capacity. They were being kept open by a mixture of management staff and hundreds of unionized staff who chose to report for work as usual.
The Grain Services Union has 1,903 members employed by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. The Pool also has 428 out-of-scope managers, administrative staff and professionals who are not members of any union.
The main issue dividing the two sides is a management proposal to eliminate restrictions on contracting out work to save money, even if such contracting-out causes elimination of Pool jobs.
On Sept. 8, the union proposed to extend all company-management agreements until January and to refer the contracting-out issue to a mediator, who could suggest solutions. The company turned down that proposal, saying that it was less than the union had offered before the union began the strike and that the union is free to end the strike at any time and resume bargaining with the aid of an existing conciliator.
Meanwhile, the union’s strike decision was endorsed by Saskatchewan Federation of Labor president Barb Byers, who said the SFL will probably provide financial and logistical support to the Grain Services Union.
