The Grain Services Union’s Manitoba victory celebration has been cut short.
On July 31, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board issued a decision saying it was satisfied that a majority of Viterra’s country operations and maintenance employees in that province wanted to be represented by the GSU.
But on Aug. 21, the union found out the case was heading back to the board.
“Viterra has now applied for reconsideration of the certification order,” said GSU general secretary Hugh Wagner.
In addition to that setback, The Western Producer has learned some employees of the Alberta and Manitoba AgPro Grain bargaining units have applied to the CIRB for decertification.
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Wagner said there used to be about 90 members in that bargaining unit, which represents workers at two Manitoba and five Alberta grain elevators.
But the CIRB moved the 30 Manitoba workers of that unit under the GSU’s country operations and maintenance unit when it handed down its July certification decision.
The GSU represents about 1,400 workers across all of its bargaining units.
Wagner said they are going to fight the decertification attempt.
The union believes the timing was flawed for such an application because it came shortly after the AgPro employees voted to accept Viterra’s final offer on June 13.
The Canada Labour Code says such applications have to occur in the waning months of a contract, not at the beginning of a new one.
“In addition to that, we’ve argued there is evidence of employer influence and interference in the process,” said Wagner.
Viterra would not comment on either the Manitoba certification review or the AgPro decertification development other than to confirm both were happening.
These incidents are part of an increasingly antagonistic seven-week long strike at Viterra that has seen the company advertising for replacement workers, threats of expanded strike activity and warnings of legal action.
However, there was no resumption of bargaining talks, and each side blames the other.
The company last week began advertising for replacement workers to do jobs normally performed by striking head office employees.
Openings for permanent and temporary positions, in areas like accounting, cash management, financial analysis and foreign exchange, have been posted on the company’s website and advertised in newspapers.
The company and the GSU have differing views as to what the ads mean.
Viterra spokesperson Mike Brooks said hiring replacement workers is designed to help “mitigate the effects” of the strike on the company.
Also, the company hopes it causes the GSU to carefully consider its actions before expanding the job action, which now consists of a strike by head office workers and a work-to-rule campaign by country operations and maintenance employees.
“We hope this action will cause the GSU to re-evaluate the strength of its bargaining position and return to the bargaining table,” said Brooks.
Wagner said hiring replacement workers is a “provocative and risky” move by the company and the union may complain to the CIRB.
Section 94 (2.1) of the federal code prohibits the use of replacement workers “for the demonstrated purpose of undermining a trade union’s representational capacity rather than the pursuit of legitimate bargaining objectives.”
However, Brooks said the company has acted properly and said, “we’ve had legal counsel review our position extensively and we believe we are well within our rights.”
The CIRB is already considering an unfair labour practice charge launched by the GSU in which it alleges Viterra bargained in bad faith to precipitate the dispute with the GSU and also asks the CIRB to declare illegal the company’s rotating lockout against country operations and maintenance employees.
Viterra maintains the lockout notice was legal and designed to help resolve the strike.
The CIRB is expected to hold a hearing in early September.
The head office and the country operations and maintenance bargaining units have been without a contract since Jan. 31, 2008.
Head office employees walked off the job July 7. Country employees are in a legal strike position but have so far engaged in a work-to-rule campaign.
The main issues include a company proposal to introduce performance-based pay, hours of work and a company proposal to take over sole control of the employees’ benefits plan, which is jointly administered by the company and the GSU.
Some staff at The Western Producer are members of another local of the GSU.
