Workers have set up a picket line outside the gates of BURNCO’s southeast Calgary plant to protest the company’s decision to lock them out.
About a dozen members of Teamsters local 362 were walking the line on Monday and say they were in the process of negotiating a new contract with the company when they received word of the lockout.
“We’ve been locked out. We weren’t called in to work this morning. They have a meeting set up to vote a proposal on Thursday and they surprised the heck out of everybody by locking us out before we had the vote,” said Doug Dodd, union member. “We were notified Friday morning by the company that they were locking us out as of Monday morning.”
Dodd says they will stay on the picket line until the meeting on Thursday.
“We don’t have a lot of choice. We have a legal right to protest the lockout and that’s what we’re doing,” said Dodd.
Jim Carlson has worked for the company for 26 years and says it’s not about the money.
“They want to take our seniority away, which I’ve worked all these years for, and they want to take the power away so they can pick and choose who works and who doesn’t,” said Carlson.
“We’re a little bit surprised, a little bit confused and I guess there’s no real good reason for it other than the fact they’re trying to take the seniority away from the drivers, basically they’re trying to break the union,” said Dodd.
BURNCO Rock Products released a statement to the media on Monday saying:
BURNCO made the difficult decision to lock out Teamsters Local Union 362 on August 10, 2015 at 12:01 am. The lockout occurred because negotiations have not been progressing in a constructive manner.
The Union held a strike vote on July 30th, immediately after the end of a cooling off period that was mandated by the Alberta Labour Relations Board. This vote was held prior to meeting with BURNCO to receive an amended offer in spite of requests by BURNCO on July 21st and July 24th to return to the bargaining table. The members voted in favour of granting the Union a strike mandate and BURNCO subsequently made an application to obtain lockout rights.
The Union finally met with BURNCO representatives on August 4th to receive the Company’s amended offer. The Union later announced that a vote on the offer would be held on August 13th but did not provide any reasons for the significant delay. BURNCO delivered lockout notice on August 7th with the hope that the offer could be presented sooner to the affected employees for consideration.
“BURNCO has a history of negotiating fair and competitive wages, benefits and work conditions,” said Michael Powell, Chief Executive Officer, BURNCO Rock Products Ltd. “The current economic environment in Calgary has become more challenging and this is a time when all parties need to be working together to find solutions. We believe that our employees should be given a timely opportunity to vote on our offer.”
(With files from The Canadian Press)
