The 594 Political Action Committee (PAC) is working to ensure workers and their rights are respected. 

    In 2008 the Sask Party brought forth the Public Service Essential Services Act; limiting the ability of public sector employees designated as “essential services” to authorize, declare or cause a work stoppage. They also brought forth the Trade Union Amendment Act; changing the union certification process to increase the necessary written support level and changing employer – employee communications (i.e. A company can now ask for the results of a ratification vote. This allows companies to gauge the membership on offers voted on, kind of a big deal). 

    The Public Service Essential Service Act was deemed unconstitutional in the Supreme Court in 2015. The following year the Sask Party introduced new Essential Services Legislation, again, which weakened essential service workers rights but not enough to be overturned. In 2020, thousands of emails were sent, phone calls made weekly and rallies were held right outside the Sask Party MLA’s place of work during our Lockout. Although meaningful conversations were felt to be had, no real action was taken by the Sask Party leadership, such as binding arbitration to end the Lockout. Just recently CP Rail were on strike and the first action taken by Premier Scott Moe was to petition the Federal Government to designate the rail workers as an Essential Service. Strictly from a worker/ labour standpoint, it’s clear that the Saskatchewan Party is not in favour of a middle class, good paying jobs, workers rights or unions in general.

    PAC members are part of local executives to place workers and their rights at the table. Recently NDP Walsh Acres executive held a cornhole fundraiser sponsored by 594. The event was a fun way to generate donations. 

“By changing nothing, nothing changes”  ~ Tony Robbins

In Solidarity,

Chuck Brittner

CHIEF SHOP STEWARD CORNER

It’s insane to think that the year is half over. Kids will be out of school right away, if not by the time you read this. Everyone is looking forward to summer vacations of different types and sizes, but all equally deserved. Our membership deserves a vacation. Not just from work, but also the bullshit. We put the ‘earned’ in EDO.

There is no workforce like ours. We are diverse, immensely skilled, highly-trained, efficient, competent and dedicated. That was extremely evident in the first half of 2022. Numerous unit upsets, emergencies & incidents, overcoming short staffing and increased workload due to insufficient shop compliment, fatigue, and a Turnaround that doesn’t seem to want to end.

It’s never been the mood of the membership to expect a pat on the back for doing our jobs. We don’t need pizza parties or cookie days, but they are a nice cherry on top. All we have ever wanted is for line management to show their respect for the workforce by leaving us alone essentially. Not trying to contract out our work, take away duties, reduce our wages, benefits and pensions, discipline every little mistake or micromanage our day. We just want to do our jobs and go home safe at the end of the shift. We just want to provide for our families. That’s it. Simple.

That aside, recognition for a job well done is still healthy and important in any workplace.

There are many groups to recognize for their above and beyond contributions to keeping the refinery operating efficiently and profitably the last several months. Essentially every work group has been overloaded with demands for their time and abilities.

Process sections are critically under-staffed. Forced to cover holidays and training purely with overtime is taxing on the workgroup, especially coming out of an extended Turnaround. Top that off with the numerous incidents and upsets (Section II, III & V specifically), the operators have done a tremendous job of keeping each other safe and the plant running as best as they can.

It’s not just the operations team that deserves kudos, its everyone! The Accounting department has worked lots of overtime to ensure the increased flood of invoices related to Turnaround were processed in a timely manner. Yield Accountants working diligently to ensure accurate inventory balancing related to start up activities so our mass balance is as accurate as possible. Our clerks also see an increased workload during turnaround with no extra help or hours to keep up. They entered 4X (!!) the normal amount of data points for the Corrosion Monitoring Program in one month.

Members from other areas like the Lab and Fire & Safety, have also stepped up! Switching from days to nights and back again to help facilitate all the shutdown, Turnaround and start up activities. The extra testing and their diligence is vital and much appreciated. It’s not easy keeping the refinery safe and the products on-spec, but both Fire & Safety and the Lab do a fantastic job!

To be continued...