Western Producer staff
Elaine Shein is a member of Western Producer management and a former member of the Grain Services Union.
I was jarred awake at 6 a.m. by the lead story on the radio last May 12. Conciliation talks had broken off the night before between Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Grain Services Union.
When my local newspaper arrived on my doorstep at 7 a.m., the top story on the front page was about a strike looming closer at the Pool – and how devastating it would be for farmers.
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Arriving at work, the atmosphere was gloomy. Almost shell-shocked.
The Pool’s and GSU’s bargaining frustrations were on the front covers of papers and lead items on broadcast news. This arrived despite each side declaring they wished to solve their differences at a bargaining table and not through the media.
Our media outlet had become part of a larger power tug-of-war that now stretches from Thunder Bay to Vancouver. More than 1,800 livestock, grain, port, head office, service centre and newspaper workers are affected.
Management’s position was clear: The construction division must be closed. It costs too much, and contracting out is needed. The impact of seniority should be reduced so the best candidates can be chosen for promotion. We need more than a 35-hour work week for office staff.
The union’s position was also clear: Seniority is a sanctified right. The construction estimates are wrong. Job security is at stake. Keep the old contract for at least another year. No rollbacks on working hours.
While more than 80 percent of the union’s employees voted in favor of strike action, many people were stunned by the news that for the first time in its history there might be a strike at Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Why has it come to this? they asked. What does it mean to us?
Farmers, busy with harvest, may also momentarily pause and ask the same questions.
During summer negotiations and conciliation, all issues were deferred for future talks, except one. The company insisted that all restrictions on contracting out must be removed.
The union took its stand: Management must abandon that proposal or a Pool-wide strike would start Sept. 7.
Management adopted its stand: We’re prepared. Business as usual.
Caught in the middle are employees and customers. Who wins during a work stoppage? No one.
It’s simple to stereotype but very unfair and unrealitisic.
Are all union members muscle-clad thugs who are clock-watchers, greedy for hefty paycheques and unrealistic demands of benefits beyond the common worker’s entitled share?
Are all managers stone-faced, unbudging misers with no respect for social and ethical values and so far removed from reality they can’t relate to workers or customer?
Almost every Saskatchewan farmer has dealt with a Saskatchewan Wheat Pool employee at some time – when you buy our newspaper, place an ad, deliver your grain to the local elevator, visit your local livestock centre, or contact our head office. You have dealt with in-scope and out-of-scope staff at different levels of our organization.
Hopefully the impression we left was that we are human.
The Prairies have built strong impressions of anti-union sentiments over the years, particularly as frustrated farmers watched organized union members received pay raises but the price of wheat and other commodities continued to stay miserably lower.
Few farmers are sympathetic to unions, and even less so when they have already gone through a tough year of transporting their grain to market position.
Union members realize the precarious position they’re in, especially the members closest to the customers. Elevator agents, for example, live in the communities where their jobs are. Their families go to school, church, and social activities with other families in the rural areas.
They are pressured now to follow their union or honor their neighbors. It can’t be easy.
Other employees throughout the system are feeling the same way. Most people are proud of their jobs, are very good at them, have good relationships with their customers, and don’t want to risk them. A lot of our employees have farm backgrounds, relatives who still farm, or may continue to farm themselves.
Many of our employees have received recognition for being part of the company for 15, 20 or more years. It has become more than just a job – it’s become their life, a workplace they’re happy in and a career they’re proud to have.
There is nothing pleasant about a strike. In the short term, some customers will be affected, no matter how hard the company tries to operate business as usual. Strikers, meanwhile, face loss of pride in their work, distrust of their company, lost pay, and changed relationships with their bosses, peers and customers.
The aftereffects can run long and deep. Relationships change between union members and managers, people who picket and those who cross lines, workers and customers.
It isn’t something cured overnight. It can be felt for weeks, months and even years.
Sometimes the professional associations people belong to will take stands on labor situations and ostracize either the strikers, the employers, or the temporary laborers replacing strikers.
The power games continue, lines are drawn in the dirt, heated words hurled back and forth, and blood pressure rises in all parties involved.
The last time I was in a situation like this, as a union member, I found I lost faith in my profession and the paper I loved. The magic of getting out the best stories I could produce was suddenly marred by politics. I was ashamed that in the history of the paper, through wars, postal strikes and a collapsed roof at our building, the paper came out – but a strike by our publishing company stopped the presses and for the first time a paper wasn’t delivered that week.
The pride slowly was earned back – but how will I feel this time, as a manager? Whether “business as usual” happens when the work stoppage occurs, there isn’t a pride to go with it, just a cold realization that a quarrel at a bargaining table has reached across the prairies and affected thousands of people.
So why is there a strike? Why continue haggling over contracts until the union’s strike deadline is past, instead of seeking other more peaceful, less confrontational solutions?
Believe it or not, this is called the best way to deal with labor situations. In most unionized workplaces, both management and union leaders insist this is the only way that makes sense. I beg to disagree.
