A delay of a company-bound freight train and a formal framework for picketing tradespeople are among the latest developments in the partial strike at Hudbay.
About 30 striking IAM Local 1848 members and supporters stood beside the train tracks near Gas Bar on Wednesday afternoon, hoisting placards and wearing reflective vests.
When the freight train came within eyeshot moments before 3 pm, it stopped and the engineer climbed out.
Following a brief and seemingly cordial talk between the engineer and IAM president Rene Beauchamp, the latter man announced to picketers, “He’s not crossing, boys, as long as we’re here.”
Allow
Beauchamp said he had made it clear to the engineer that the picketers would allow the train to proceed. He also instructed picketers not to stand on the tracks.
Beauchamp said the engineer told him he was choosing not to proceed past the picketers and would probably have to summon a staff engineer to do so.
At that point it appeared as though the delay could last many hours, but the train carried on across Third Avenue en route to Hudbay at about 5 pm.
IAM vice-president Blair Sapergia later said the police visited the picketers and asked that they allow the train to proceed.
The locomotive had stopped just past the Vocational Training Centre on nearby Channing Drive.
Rob Winton, head of Hudbay’s Manitoba operations, was concerned by the picketers’ decision.
“I have heard reports of union members staging a picket on the tracks owned by OmniTrax near the Gas Bar,” Winton said Wednesday afternoon, while the train was still halted. “My concern would be for the safety of our community, the people stopping a train and the operators on the train. As rail travel is federally regulated, this action will be taken very seriously by OmniTrax and will be a matter for OmniTrax and the RCMP.”
Limited right
The train delay came a day after IAM and Hudbay agreed to a strike protocol that gives picketers a limited right to delay motor vehicles entering Hudbay property.
The agreement allows picketers to delay each vehicle for up to five minutes, but any vehicle in a lineup cannot be delayed longer than 30 minutes.
Delays are to be “solely for the purpose of disseminating information,” and “unlawful intimidating, threatening” actions are prohibited, as is “causing a reasonable apprehension of intentional contact with any person” or vehicle.
Picketers may not interfere with any vehicles leaving the properties. And there can be “no deliberate prevention, restriction or limiting of any audio or video recording of events.”
IAM resumed traffic delays near Hudbay’s main gate yesterday morning. A motorist passing by at 7 am said there was “no way” the total lineup time was 30 minutes or less.
The motorist said he saw security people taking down licence plate numbers on the Perimeter Highway, presumably checking the time that vehicles arrived at the main gate.
Sapergia, the IAM vice-president, said the union was following the rules of the strike protocol.
With the strike protocol, Winton said the company wanted to take a balanced approach to the situation.
“This agreement is meant to ensure Hudbay’s legal right to operate while acknowledging the union’s legal right to picket and communicate,” Winton said. “This route was chosen to allow Hudbay and the union an opportunity to obtain a mutually agreeable solution to the picket lines.”
As IAM’s strike entered its 13th day yesterday, there once again appeared to be no end in sight.
“We’re ready to talk if [Hudbay is] ready to talk, for sure,” Beauchamp said Wednesday.
While IAM wants concessions from Hudbay on a number of fronts, is the union also willing to make concessions?
“Right now everything’s back on the table. I mean, it’s right from square one,” said Beauchamp.
Throughout the strike, IAM has maintained picket lines in Flin Flon and Snow Lake, but Beauchamp admits it has been more difficult to do so at Reed mine.
“We can only do it twice a week at shift change,” Beauchamp said, adding, however, that under the new protocol with Hudbay, the union will delay ore trucks from Reed entering Hudbay’s Flin Flon plant.
IAM represents 12 per cent of Hudbay’s Flin Flon-Snow Lake workforce. The union has 180 members, mostly mechanics, machinists and pipefitters.
