The Calgary Herald
October 19, 2005
Plant Resumes Production on Limited Basis:
Labor Board Reduces Delay on Picket Line to Three Minutes
Tyson Foods said it managed to bus 700 workers across the picket line at
Lakeside Packers on Tuesday, enough to begin "limited" processing in the
meat-packing plant a day after failing to get enough workers inside to start up
the machines.
About 1,100 "team members" showed up for work, but 400 were sent home after
delays caused by the picket line forced workers to sit in their cars for up to
three hours before arriving at a staging area to be bused to the plant, said
Gary Mickelson, spokesman for Arkansas-based Tyson, which owns Lakeside.
Late Tuesday, the Alberta Labour Relations Board ruled that pickets could
delay vehicles for only three minutes -- the striking workers had been stopping
each car and truck for up to nine minutes. The three-minute rule applies to
single cars and entire groups of vehicles leaving or arriving.
The board, meeting in Calgary, decided not to file the ruling with the
courts, leaving it up to the RCMP to enforce the edict.
Earlier in the day, in a separate matter, the board was told that picketing
Lakeside employees need to be protected from plant managers who allegedly caused
the local union president to crash his vehicle last week.
Gwen Gray, legal counsel for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, is
urging the labour board to restrict six Lakeside management staff charged in
connection with the crash from being within 200 metres of striking workers.
"The prudent thing for the board to do is to put these individuals in a
situation where they can't repeat this behaviour," Gray told a three-member
labour board panel.
Company lawyer David Ross opposed restricting his clients' access to the
plant because they would not be able to work. He said they are innocent until
proven guilty.
The board adjourned Tuesday without ruling on the matter.
Meanwhile, Lyle Oberg, the MLA for Strathmore-Brooks, said Tuesday the
provincial government will not impose an emergency end to the strike.
Oberg, who is also minister of infrastructure and transportation, and was
formerly the learning minister, said that strategy was tried in February 2002
when the government imposed a public emergency tribunal to end a teachers
strike.
"We put in a public emergency tribunal for 20,000 teachers that were out that
had been out for three weeks, and that was actually overturned by the courts who
said it was not a public emergency," Oberg said in Edmonton.
If a relatively lengthy teachers strike was not considered an emergency by
the courts, neither would the strike at Lakeside Packers, Oberg said.
In Brooks, "picketers once again delayed our efforts to put our team members
back to work," said Mickelson, "but we are pleased we were able to start
processing."
The workers started cutting up carcasses of more than 1,000 cattle the
company said it managed to slaughter.
Mickelson said Lakeside plans to slaughter more cattle today.
Union officials, meanwhile, disputed the number that crossed the line.
"Based on our counts, we think about 400 scabs may have made it across," said
Tom Hesse, a negotiator with UFCW Local 401. "If they are so able to run their
plant, why do they continue to go ask the labour relations board for more
restrictions on our picketing?"
The union says it has more than 1,100 registered strikers from the
slaughterhouse, which employs 2,400.
Many of those strikers were happy to hear the news that two more Lakeside
managers were charged late Monday in connection with a vehicle collision last
week that left Local 401 president Doug O'Halloran injured.
"The mood on the picket line was almost jovial with the news of justice being
done," Hesse said Tuesday.
In total, six men have been charged in the Friday incident, including five
managers and the former owner of Lakeside.
The latest to be charged were Carey Kopp, 37, head of human resources, and
Andrew Crocker, 57, the head of security at the plant.
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