October Conciliator

Volume 19 | Issue 10 | October 2019

IN THIS ISSUE:

Scab Camp

Benefits of NEB

Getting Involved

Community Update

594 Support Squad

How much is a Billion

594 Swag

EXECUTIVE

President:

Kevin Bittman

Recording Secretary:

Carla McCrie

Treasurer:

Kaleena Baulin

Negotiating Chairperson:

Nathan Kraemer

Maintenance V.P.:

Jason Kelly

Process V.P.:

Avery Richie

Administration V.P.:

Lance Holowachuk

PDD V.P.:

David Limacher

Chief Shop Steward:

Richard Exner

Information Officer:

Ashlyn Heintz

Guide:

Brandon Mang

Sergeant at Arms:

Brandon Klatt

Trustees:

Daryl Nylen (19)

Amy Wisniewski (20)

Daryl Watch (21)

SCAB CAMP

We all remember when the Company paraded in their trailer complex east of Section Five in 2017. It was shocking. It was at a time when many still felt like the Co-op cared about its loyal employees. It caught us by surprise. Many people wondered how our wonderful Co-op could take such drastic measures to lockout its workers. And how could they strongarm managers to live onsite and act as replacement workers. The whole situation was bizarre and disrespectful.

Flash forward to 2019, and as we see the camp being set up it certainly doesn’t surprise us. The shock value isn’t the same. We are all aware at just how much Saskatoon values it’s workers and what their agenda is.

The Company has chosen to disrespect its workers again, by bringing in the trailers. There will be irreparable harm to the pride we have in our workplace, and it will cause a loss of trust that will take decades to recover. The Company is so concerned about keeping the Cooperative System sustainable for the long term, but they can’t even be bothered to ensure their own employee’s future and morale is sustainable. The Company’s 2018 Engagement Survey results confirmed that the destruction of morale is already happening.

These constant attacks on the membership in the last six years doesn’t weaken us, it only serves to strengthen us a group. The constant attacks will have a detrimental effect on the memberships willingness and desire to go above and beyond for the Co-op Refinery ever again. The next time that phone rings on Christmas Eve because there is a large-scale incident, you all remember that one, after two rounds of constant attacks, it would be surprising if anyone left their families to come and help get the plant right.

The membership has had enough of the ongoing attacks while the Co-op has been making Billions and Billions of dollars. So, we will fight. Bringing in their trailer complex so Saskatoon can run a very dangerous facility with underqualified and incompetent workers (aka Scabs) doesn’t scare us. It is the people who are inside the plant and around it who should be scared. The trailers that have sat in a farmer’s field for the last two years collecting dust and being infested with mouse feces doesn’t scare us, we won’t have to live in them. They are likely not even fit for human habitation and won’t pass building codes or occupational safety regulations. Does the Saskatoon care? Not likely.

So, Co-op, bring in your scabs, bring in your scab trailer town and put up your fences, we don’t care, we aren’t scared. It doesn’t matter anymore. It only serves to unite us more in our fight for what is just and what is right. We no longer seek respect and a fair deal we demand it.

In Solidarity,

The Unifor 594 Membership

BENEFITS OF THE NATIONAL ENERGY BARGAINING PROGRAM

SHOP STEWARDS

Section IA:

Wade Schnell

Section IB:

Charles Brittner

Section II:

Chad Gettle

Section III:

Curtis Baht & Kevin Geiger

Section IV:

Ryan Jelinski

Section V:

Chad Thompson &

Andrew Murray

Building Maintenance:

Gary Gruell

MRP: Vacant

Pipefitters:

Shaun Jenkins & Karl Dahle

Mechanics:

Derek Kups

Stores:

Dallas Allen & Nathan Fafard

Electrical:

Les Bonkowski

Instrumentation:

Jaret McCloy &

Dave Mushynsky

Inspection:

Keith Britton

Fire & Safety:

Daryl Watch

Lab:

Scott Weber

Pumpers:

Ryan Dzioba

Decokers:

Jon Javorik

Welders:

Scott Wickland

Scaffolders:

Nelson Wagman

Construction:

Mike Pelzer

Boilerhouse:

Matt Wason

Insulators:

Luke McGeough &

Brandon Mang

PDD Office:

Andrew Fowlow

PDD Loading:

Dylan Bailey & Derek Emperingham

Packing & Blending,

Warehouse: vacant

Administration:

Tasha Davis &

Randy Guillemin

The National Energy Bargaining (NEB) program is a term that most of us have heard at some point in our careers at the Co-op. The National Energy program is typically only heard of when we are nearing bargaining, but it is a program that is functioning even when we are not embroiled in the bargaining process.

All Unifor Energy Sector unions, which includes refineries, chemical plants, and gas plants, can elect to be part of the NEB. There are currently forty-eight (48) Unifor locals across Canada participating in the NEB, representing close to 8500 members. The NEB gives us an opportunity to network and share information with other workplaces within our industry facing the same challenges and opportunities.

The NEB structure includes a twelve (12) member Advisory Committee with one of those members elected from Saskatchewan. Unifor 594 has had an executive member elected to represent Saskatchewan for the last few bargains on the Advisory Committee.

During this troubling bargaining the NEB has proven to be an unbelievable wealth of knowledge and resources for us to draw upon. When the Company uses words like ‘Industry Standard’ and ‘Top 4’ we really do not know what that means, as they have never broken out their data they used to make their fancy graphs.

The Executive has access to truthful information about benefits and other workplaces in our industry because of the NEB. When we emailed other locals looking for information about other locals that have switched to a DC pension from a DB pension, it was clear that the vast majority were transitioned voluntarily. Most other refineries are on a DC plan now, but so is ours. The other refineries made their switch (between 5 and 25 years ago) for new hires and for anyone that wanted to voluntarily switch. To this day, most refineries in the NEB still have people on DB plans that are closed, commonly referred to as ‘Legacy Plans’. In those cases the plan members numbers are slowly decreasing through attrition. And in those cases, after the switch the DB people were never touched. Here is a quote from Doug Moysich Unifor Local #593.

“The switch to DC happened back in 2001. People where given the choice to stay in DB or get out and go into a DC. Naturally the company made the DC look very attractive back then. Bad mistake on the part of those who chose to switch, their pensions are approximately half of those who are getting DB. Doug”

This is just one example of the many of responses we received from other locals that made the switch to a DC Plan.

The NEB provides a wealth of information and resources to all member locals and we are fortunate to have not just the 8500 members of the Energy Sector behind us, but all 320,000 Unifor members across Canada.

Unifor 594 Bargaining Committee

GETTING INVOLVED

I’ve been working at the Co-op Refinery Complex for over five years. I’ve gained a large amount of respect for our Union and the men and women that are a part of it. A large majority of the people I’ve met so far working here are very passionate and proud of our workplace. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been easy being an employee of Federated Co-op for the last few years. The constant threat of having parts of our compensation for working here taken from us has been very stressful for us employees and our families, to say the least. Our union solidarity is crucial in fighting back and retaining what we were promised when we were all hired.

I had been considering for quite a while about getting more involved with our union. I thought about how I could help. Aside from attending more monthly meetings, I wasn’t sure where to start. I was approached to take a 3-day course Unifor puts on called Grievance Handling and Workplace Leadership. I figured this was a good opportunity to get more involved with our Union. I learned about investigating and documenting grievances, developing grievance strategy, communicating with members and management, analyzing workplace problems, promoting and building the union, and being a leader in the workplace.

I think the most important thing I took away from the course was the depth of support Unifor provides for us, the wide range of industries they support, and the passion these people have for our workforce. In the years to come, I look forward to increasing my involvement with our union that works so hard to support us.

Scott Carnduff, Pumper

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT UPDATE

Firstly, a huge shout-out to everyone who has shown support to Crown workers on the picket lines and on social media. We will continue to organize opportunities for 594 to demonstrate #solidarity for our Unifor brothers & sisters who are now locked out.

At CIBC Run for the Cure on Oct 6, our #Unifor594SupportSquad won the Corporate Spirit Award for raising $7000 for breast cancer research! See team captain Heather Bell’s update in this Conciliator.

Men of 594: time to get hairy for a good cause! Last year, we jointly raised nearly $30K. We're teaming up again with Co-op Refinery Complex to raise even more next month. Contact Daryl Nylen to join the Refinery Stache for Cash team, or donate to them at Movember.com.

Listen for our new radio ads running this month on Harvard stations like 620 CKRM, My 92.1, and Wolf 104.9.

As things gear up for our return to contract negotiations on Nov 11, here are the top 3 ways you can help drum up support:

1) Read & share our articles and social media content

“Lockout Lowdown” is back! We’re rolling out info & ideas regarding our current labour dispute. Find them through the red button on our website homepage and on our Facebook & Twitter. And keep sharing our posts and tweets!

2) Keep liking & sharing our videos

Many of you have been helping get our videos thousands of views — thank you! Feedback has been extremely positive from both labour allies and the public. Gratitude again to the members who stepped up to talk about our work and value to the Refinery and community.

3) #SupportUnifor594

Use the hashtag and take the steps outlined on that page on our website #SupportUnifor594 , then tell everyone you know to do the same.

UNIFOR 594 SUPPORT SQUAD

On October 6 ^th , the UNIFOR 594 Support Squad participated in the CIBC Run for the Cure. Our team was comprised of 12 members from the refinery: IT, Accounting, Process and PDD. While we had set individual fundraising goals, our team goal was to raise $5,000 towards breast cancer research. Not only did we meet our goal, we exceeded it by being just a smidge shy of $7,500. The money raised was a group effort. We had donors from all over the place: family, friends, co-workers, managers and some of the RLT contributed. To those who donated, we say thank you so much for helping us reach and then exceed our goal. We truly appreciate it. I would like to give a special thanks to our local because they donated the shirts we wore and donated $25 to every team member!

Prior to the event, I picked up some coffee and muffins for our team to enjoy. It was a bit brisk that morning, so the coffee went over especially well. Many of the team members who came out I knew but there were some I didn’t. For me, this was a great opportunity to meet a new person in Process and one from IT. Then we got to talking as a group and I could sense some cohesion among our group. Signing up for events like this is a fun way to meet other people at the refinery whom you wouldn’t normally meet. For those who were not on the team this year, you may want to reconsider for next year.

CIBC representatives and Mayor Fougere addressed the crowd of nearly 1,400 during the opening ceremonies. Many thanks were given and there were some awards given as well. UNIFOR 594 Support Squad won the Corporate Spirit award as an acknowledgement of how much money we had raised. I was proud to accept our award on behalf of the team. I looked into the crowd and saw many women wearing purple shirts – those are the ladies who are breast cancer survivors. I thought to myself how important it was, and how good it felt, knowing that we were part of a fundraising campaign that helped those women and millions of others like them. It felt great knowing that our union, our local had made a difference in the community.

We’re proud of our accomplishment and hopefully you are too.

Again, thank you to John, Kevin, Chrystal, Christal, Quinn, Heidi, Derek, Karla, Krista, Chloe, Sharlene and Yoon for all your hard work and dedication.

Heather Bell,

Team Captain of the UNIFOR 594 Support Squad

HOW MUCH IS A BILLION, ANYWAY?

In 1988, when The Barenaked Ladies released “If I Had a Million Dollars” seven-figures was a lot of money. Make no mistake, a million dollars is still a lot of money, but just imagine how much dijon ketchup you could buy with a BILLION dollars.

In 2018, FCL recorded a profit of one billion, one hundred million dollars. That’s $1,100,000,000. A billion is a massive number. It can be hard to fathom just how big that number actually is.

If you put it in the context of time, 1 million seconds is about 12 days. One billion seconds is just shy of 32 YEARS.

If you think about some of the major projects our province has completed recently, you can picture some of the things a billion dollars can do. Mosaic stadium had a final cost of $278 million. Almost four stadiums could be built for 1.1 billion. Another major project recently completed is the new children’s hospital, which had a final cost was $286 million dollars. That’s a mere 26 per cent of 1.1 billion. The stadium and the hospital will take taxpayers years, maybe even decades, to pay for. The monetary value of both projects took FCL only 6 months to reach.

If you worked hard and earned $5000 every day, for 365 days a year… you would make $1,825,000 a year. From the date that Columbus discovered the New World in 1492 until today (2019)...you still wouldn't be a BILLIONAIRE. But FCL is, two years in a row.

Other ways to think about a billion dollars:

● $1.1 billion could give every person at a sold-out Rider game $33,333.00.

● $1.1 billion could buy 22,000 Ford F150s valued at $50,000.

● $1.1 billion could buy 1100 homes valued at a million dollars.

Another interesting way to think about how huge FCL’s profits are is in terms of the employees at the refinery. If there are 800 full time employees, that is $1,375,000 per employee.

At the time of writing this, FCL has already surpassed $800 million in profits for 2019. The final quarter, which includes the extremely profitable harvest season, has yet to come.

During the bargaining process, we must consider the profitability of the company. A billion dollars can be hard to imagine, but what’s truly unimaginable is our membership accepting any concessions during this time of record profits.

Scott Weber, Lab Technician

Are you interested in sporting Unifor 594 Swag?

Check out our list of swag at:

www.unifor594.com