The Grain Services Union hopes to turn uncertainty in the grain industry into increased membership.
The Regina based union is preparing to launch organizing campaigns at a number of companies in the grain and agriculture sector, hoping to convince workers that their best chance to gain job security is by joining a union.
The union has been considering such a strategy for some time, but said the recent bid by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool to buy Agricore United has brought into focus the need for employees to organize as a matter of self-defence.
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“The proposed bid is a wake-up call for everybody,” said GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner.
When Sask Pool talks about a combined company creating $60 million in synergies, that’s bad news for employees of the two companies.
“When you put two competing companies together into one, what does it mean? Fewer jobs for the wage earners,” he said. “Synergies means job cuts.”
Sask Pool’s grain and farm service employees are among the 1,500 workers across Western Canada currently represented by the GSU.
Wagner said that while AU won’t be the only target for the organizing drives, that’s an obvious place to start, given the immediate threat to employees if the takeover bid is successful.
However, Wagner said that in talking to AU employees, the union will argue that regardless of whether the takeover bid is successful, it would be in their best long-term interests to join the union.
“Chief executive officers are interested only in satisfying the stock market,” he said. “The union is interested only in protecting the rights of its members.”
AU’s chief executive officer took issue with that assessment.
“I categorically disagree with that,” said Brian Hayward.
While the company’s focus is to provide shareholder value, one way that is accomplished is by ensuring employees are satisfied with their working conditions.
Hayward said feedback from employees indicates that is indeed the case, adding that in an independent survey of the top companies to work for, AU was rated in the top 200 nationally and the top 10 in Manitoba.
Hayward declined to make any specific comment about the GSU’s plans regarding AU.
This will represent the GSU’s second attempt to organize employees of AU, which was created in 2001 by the merger of Agricore and United Grain Growers.
At that time, the union represented 600 Agricore employees who were absorbed into the new company. Another 650 AU employees were non-unionized workers from UGG.
The employees voted 59 percent against joining the union.
However, if the issue comes to a vote again, Wagner thinks the result could be different.
“I think the environment has changed enough to produce a change in attitude among employees,” he said, noting that more than 300 jobs were lost as a result of the merger that created AU.
In an organizing drive, the union attempts to persuade employees in a proposed bargaining to sign union cards. If it achieves 50 percent plus one, it can apply to the labour relations board for a certification order, and under Manitoba, Saskatchewan and federal labour regulations, one will be granted.
A vote among all affected employees can be ordered even if the drive falls short of 50 percent. Alberta law requires a vote under any circumstance.
