[rad-green] Hundreds of Canadian Workers Are Blockading an Oil Refinery Right Now

*https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/regina-saskatchewan-oil-refinery-unifor-blockade-strike
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/regina-saskatchewan-oil-refinery-unifor-blockade-strike>?*

*Jacobin          01.28.2020*

*Hundreds of Canadian Workers Are Blockading an Oil Refinery Right Now*

*The Canadian union Unifor is currently blockading an oil refinery in
Regina, Saskatchewan. It’s an important example of what democratic,
militant, and solidarity-based unionism can look like.*


*Workers on strike at the Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina, Saskatchewan. J
Robert Burger.*

In one of the most militant job actions Canada has seen in recent memory,
workers at the Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina, Saskatchewan — locked out
by their employer since December 5 over a contract dispute — have blockaded
the 544-acre facility, preventing scabs from getting in and petroleum from
getting out.

The workers are members of Unifor, the country’s largest private-sector
union. Unifor Local 594 represents about 800 employees at the refinery,
which is owned by Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) — a major company
that posted a record $1.2 billion
<https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/federated-co-op-posts-record-revenues-profits-but-warns-of-need-to-keep-innovating>
in
profits in 2018. The refinery supplies petroleum products to FCL groceries,
gas stations, and hardware stores across Western Canada.

Unifor and FCL hit an impasse in contract negotiations last fall. The
company is trying to restructure the workers’ pensions, making each
employee individually choose between either paying into the existing
defined plan (which FCL has always paid into entirely) or switching to a
less stable, 401(k)-style contribution plan. The union says
<https://www.unifor.org/en/whats-new/press-room/unifor-turns-tables-fcl-lockout>
such
a change would lead to a nearly 50 percent cut in retirement benefits,
after FCL previously promised not to touch pensions.

“What Federated Co-operatives is proposing is nothing short of a gutting of
our pension,” Kevin Bittman, president of Unifor Local 594, told me. “Many
of us simply don’t have enough working years left to save to make up the
difference. A pension cut this deep will undermine the retirement security
of every single member.”

On December 3, Unifor Local 594 members voted
<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/timeline-of-co-op-refinery-lockout-1.5436080>
to
authorize a strike. But two days later, the company locked them out and
immediately began bringing in replacement workers to keep production going.
Unifor says the scabs are underqualified, jeopardizing workplace safety.

Since the lockout began seven weeks ago, the workers have maintained robust
24-7 pickets outside the refinery in frigid winter temperatures and have
organized a national boycott <http://www.boycottcoop.ca/> of FCL
businesses. After Unifor’s pickets forced the company to begin using
helicopters
<https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/12/23/company-seeks-injunction-co-op-union-in-court-over-pickets-at-regina-refinery/>
to
move scabs and supplies in and out of the facility, FCL secured a court
injunction against the union on December 23.

The injunction limits the union’s picket activity, requiring
<https://www.rankandfile.ca/regina-refinery-lockout-is-no-tea-party/> pickets
to be suspended for up to ten minutes at a time to allow the smooth
transportation of replacement workers and fuel trucks. In other words, the
court order completely undermines the union and strengthens the company’s
position.

The workers are defying the injunction. On January 20, they installed
fences around the refinery complex and initiated a blockade to shut down
production. Regina police arrested
<https://globalnews.ca/video/6444086/14-arrested-following-unifors-blockade-at-co-op-refinery>
fourteen
picketers, including Unifor national president Jerry Dias, charging them
with “mischief.”

Unifor secretary-treasurer Lana Payne accused
<https://www.unifor.org/en/whats-new/press-room/unifor-outraged-extreme-police-escalation-co-op-refinery>
the
police of using “heavy-handed tactics aimed at inflaming tensions” and said
the arrests were “completely unnecessary and on a level I have rarely
witnessed in recent years.”

“I’ve never seen a police department in any city in this country behave the
way the Regina police did,” Dias said
<https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/local-unifor-activist-arrested-on-regina-picket-line>
after
being released from custody.

Despite the arrests, and despite a judge leveling a $100,000 fine
<https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/01/22/unifor-fined-for-violating-court-order-during-lockout-at-co-op-regina-refinery.html>
against
Unifor for violating the injunction, the blockade around the refinery is
continuing. Hundreds of union members from across Canada—including from the
Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, and
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) — have converged on Regina to
join the twenty-four-hour pickets. Facing this mounting pressure, FCL’s CEO
agreed
<https://www.unifor.org/en/whats-new/press-room/co-op-ceo-scott-banda-meet-unifor-today>
to
meet with union representatives on Monday for the first time since the
lockout began.

“If they take away pensions in the private sector, we at the public sector
know they’re coming after ours next,” CUPE president Mark Hancock recently
said
<https://globalnews.ca/news/6448612/were-all-blue-collar-workers-unions-across-canada-throw-support-behind-unifor/>
on
the picket lines. “Our members at CUPE have very similar experiences to
those at Unifor. There are some nuances, there are some differences, but at
the end of the day, we’re all workers.”

“The escalation by police and the greed of the employer have been met with
an unprecedented mobilization of workers,” Dias says. “It’s a defining
moment for the modern Canadian labor movement.”

From the United States, the United Electrical Workers (UE) issued a solidarity
statement
<https://www.ueunion.org/ue-news/2020/ue-stands-in-solidarity-with-unifor-refinery-workers-condemns-aggressive-police-tactics>,
condemning the actions of local police, and sent a small delegation to
Regina last week. Since signing a cooperation agreement
<https://www.ueunion.org/press-release/2017/ue-unifor-launch-solidarity-project>
to
promote cross-border labor solidarity in 2017, UE and Unifor have been
close allies. Through their North American Solidarity Project
<https://www.ueunion.org/ue-policy/the-north-american-solidarity-project>,
the unions are striving to build “a continental labor alliance based upon
democratic and militant social unionism.”

Unifor’s blockade of the Regina refinery provides an important example of
what such a democratic, militant, and solidarity-based unionism can look
like. Facing a hostile employer and state, the union and its members are
using their collective power and taking bold risks rather than playing it
safe.

While the goal is strictly to safeguard pensions, the workers are also
demonstrating organized labor’s power to bring the production and
distribution of fossil fuels to a halt — the type of action that may need
to continue happening, on a larger scale and in a more coordinated way, in
order to force the kind of systemic changes needed to end the climate
crisis.

The US labor movement should take note of what is happening in Regina — and
get behind the workers of Unifor Local 594.

*Jeff Schuhrke is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Illinois
at Chicago. He is a steward and former co-president of the UIC Graduate
Employees Organization, AFT Local 6297.*

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