September 3, 2008

 

Viterra's country operations personnel to initiate job action

  

 

Viterra Inc.'s estimated 650 country elevator operation and maintenance employees in Saskatchewan, represented by the Grain Services Union, or GSU, are planning to initiate job action against the company within the next couple of days if there is no new collective bargaining agreement reached, an official with the GSU said.

 

"At a meeting held last week, an update on the whole situation was provided to country operation and maintenance representatives and after much consideration by those officials, a decision was made to begin escalating job action against Viterra on a gradual basis," Hugh Wagner, GSU general secretary, said.

 

Wagner said the GSU has urged mediation meetings and are still hopeful the company will agree to these meetings.

 

"We have indicated that if there is a prospect for a settlement, we will give that due consideration," Wagner said. "Frankly, however, the expression of those country operation and maintenance delegates was that their patience with the company was running out."

 

Wagner said the last thing the country operation and maintenance workers want to do is disrupt grain handling operations.

 

"The farmers are our friends and neighbours and we are sensitive to their needs, and while the union does not want to drag them in to this dispute, Viterra has forced this hand," Wagner said.

 

The contract impasse between Viterra and its unionized employees at the Regina office also was continuing with no progress to date on that front either, Wagner said.

 

Wagner said union representatives have remained in contact with the federal government's appointed mediator, but the mediator has not found enough common ground to bring the two sides together.

 

As for business as usual claims by the company, Wagner said it was unlikely that this

was the case.

 

"In conversations with inside middle management, it is not business as usual," he said. "There is talk about huge work backlogs, people calling the information help desk being hung up on and operations in general being a mess."

 

Wagner also said the fact Viterra is advertising for replacement workers to replace the employees on the picket line is also a sign that it was not business as usual.

 

A Viterra spokesman, meanwhile, said there was nothing to report or update at this time.

 

Maureen Fitzhenry, manager of media services for the Canadian Wheat Board, said that so far the CWB has had no issues or problems to date with the Viterra labour dispute.

 

She also indicated the CWB has heard about the promise by the country operators to escalate action against Viterra, but have also received assurances from company management that everything will run smoothly.

 

"Viterra has informed the CWB that they have a plan in place in case things do escalate, and the CWB is confident they will be able to deal with it," Fitzhenry said.

 

However, she also acknowledged that the CWB will be assessing the situation as it moves forward.

 

Viterra, the new operating name for Saskatchewan Wheat Pool after its acquisition of Agricore United, is in a contract dispute with some 200 unionized employees at its headquarters and as many as 650 grain elevator workers in Saskatchewan.

 

The Saskatchewan workers voted in June to reject the company's last contract offer. Alberta and Manitoba members voted 85.5 percent in favour of accepting the same offer made by Viterra. The workers at Viterra's head office in Regina began striking at one minute after midnight local time on July 7.