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Timeline of Events
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| Strikers delay scab workers on the picket line in October. |
Read a timeline of events that led up to the Local 401 workers' strike at Tyson's Lakeside Packers plant, and what has happened since.
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Summer 2004
Workers receive union certification with UFCW Local 401 in Alberta, Canada, in the late summer, and have been fighting for their first contract ever since.
- June 2005
In an overwhelming endorsement of their union’s bargaining position, workers give a 70 percent strike mandate. “Hopefully, this will serve as a wakeup call to Tyson Foods” says UFCW Local 401 President Doug O’Halloran. “We look forward to a more positive approach on the part of the employer in collective bargaining. But if there isn’t, the possibility of a strike is a very real one.”
- July 15, 2005
The union announces a strike will commence on July 20th at 5 a.m. unless the company negotiates a fair collective agreement with its workers. Local 401 offered binding arbitration to the employer to avert a strike. *Under Alberta Labor Law in Canada, the union must give 72 hours notice of a strike. *Also under Alberta Labor Law, if the union and the company agree to an impartial mediator, the mediator’s contract proposal is not binding.
- July 19, 2005
Tyson rejects the union’s suggestion that the strike be avoided by submitting all outstanding issues to a well-known Alberta mediator.
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| Local 401 workers are ready to strike, but the provincial government intervenes and takes away that right for 60 days. |
July 20, 2005
While many workers show up at picket lines in front of Lakeside Packers, they can not strike because of a last minute intervention by the provincial government. The government set the dispute to a Dispute Inquiries Board, which removes the union workers’ right to strike for 60 days. Workers can only continue to bargain with the company in good faith.
- September 26, 2005
Workers overwhelmingly vote 90 percent to accept a Disputes Inquiry Board recommended collective agreement. The contract proposal includes the basics of ensuring a voice for workers, but is still a modest first agreement and compromise for workers. Tyson must agree to it the mediator’s proposal.
- October 12, 2005
More than 2,300 workers at the cattle slaughterhouse and processing plant are forced to strike after Tyson throws out the mediator’s proposal.
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| Garang Mabior Ngueny, Achiek Deng Majok, and Yoannes Charles Chan were beaten and left injured in a ditch on the second day of the strike. |
October 13, 2005
Provincial law enforcement officers stand as replacement workers and management verbally and physically assault Sudanese workers with racially-motivated jeers and anti-immigrant insults. Several strikers are reportedly beaten and left injured in a ditch before being transported to the hospital.
- October 14, 2005
Local 401 President Doug O’Halloran is hospitalized after Tyson officials run his car off the road and force a three-car collision. Two Tyson senior officials and two other employees are charged with reckless endangerment on October 20.
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| On behalf of UFCW Local 7 members, Local 7 President Ernest Duran hands UFCW Local 401 President Doug O'Halloran a $100,000 check for the Tyson strikers and their families. |
October 15, 2005
Tyson's brutal attacks on picket lines fuel solidarity across the continent. Members of UFCW local unions across the continent rally to support their striking brothers and sisters in Alberta. Local unions continue raising money to sponsor striking families.
- October 17, 2005
The International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association (IUF) urges its members to take action in support of Tyson workers on strike.
- October 19, 2005
Tyson begins work on a new dirt and gravel road to lead to the Lakeside Packers plant, with plans of 13 separate entrances to avoid strikers and bus in scab workers.
- October 20, 2005
Local 401 workers mourn the deaths of two strikers, who lost their lives in a car accident on the road near the Tyson plant. Four others were injured and hospitalized in the crash, which is said to be unrelated to the Tyson strike. Workers halt picket lines the next day to remember and honor their young, fellow co-workers, who came to Canada seeking a better life. Tyson continues running its plant.
- October 20, 2005
Senior Tyson executives Andy Crocker and Carey Kopp are charged by the Alberta Labor Relations Board for engaging in a "dispute-related misconduct"-- a "careless and dangerous" activity injuring and "endangering the lives of," Local 401 President Doug O'Halloran and other drivers when they forced O'Halloran's car off the road Oct. 14. Crocker and Kopp are barred from driving within 200 meters of picket lines. Kopp, who was involved with the bargaining process, is also barred from furthern negotiations.
- October 24, 2005
Unionized meat inspectors have refused to cross picket lines for the past three days, essentially halting all operations at the Brooks-area plant.
- October 24, 2005
Two members of the Canadian Parliament, New Democrat MPs Peter Julian (Brunaby-New Westminster) and David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre), joined the strikers at the picket line to show support. Christopherson says to the Calgary Herald, "First contracts are always of critical importance. It means even more when we have so many new Canadians here who are beginning to start their life and understand what Canada is all about."
- October 26, 2005
About 200 people paid their last respects at the funeral for two workers who died in a car accident last week. Local 401 President Doug O'Halloran addressed the mourners attending the funeral and said union workers on strike will wear buttons with the men's pictures on them in their memory.
- October 27, 2005
Premier Ralph Klein said his government would consider first contract legislation in light of the bitterness and violence of the Lakeside Packers strike.
- October 28, 2005
Meat inspectors are ordered back to work, and a judge orders strikers to clear the way and allow inspectors to enter the plant.
- November 2, 2005
Tyson reaches a tentative agreement with Loval 401 workers, who will vote on the contract proposal in two days. Workers continue to stay on picket lines in the meantime.
- November 4, 2005
Workers ratify their first contract agreement.
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