Co-op – UniFor Far From Record Territory

The lock-out at the Regina Refinery complex has been going on for about three months now but doesn’t register on the long tenured labor-management disputes in this province.

No that record is years from being tested.

The longest one in the province dates back to the 80s when Pineland Co-op in Nipawin and members of the RWDSU went at it for more than seven years.  Another one that went for an extended duration was Sobey’s on South Albert in Regina which lasted more than a year.

While disputes such as these are not unusual, they tend to be rare…especially ones that are protracted and last for years. One other characteristic that is often common in these disputes is where they occur in the business cycle.

For the most part, they surface near the tail end of the cycle …at a time when business fortunes are beginning to decline. Labor feels it missed out on the upswing so it is looking for more while management is feeling the pinch of a downturn and stands its ground in pursuit of cost-cutting when demand is falling.