Under provisions of the Alberta labor code, on July 19 the government declared as illegal any strike or lockout at the plant for the next 60 days. If no contract is signed by mid-October, which will mark one year since the union was certified at Lakeside, the company may then apply for a government-supervised decertification vote against the union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401. “This is the first time in history that the Alberta labor code has been used in this way against workers in the private sector,” UFCW representative Larry Zima told the Militant in a phone interview. Zima said the government assigned a mediator to try to get talks going between the union and the company.

About 1,100 workers massed in front of the plant at 5:00 a.m. July 20 to protest the anti-labor intervention.

“We have been asking the province for help with Lakeside for the past nine months and the government never helped us,” Lakeside worker Edil Hassan said at the rally, according to the Calgary Herald. “Now all of a sudden they say we have to go back to work. For what? All we’re asking for is a collective agreement and fair treatment.”

That morning no one entered the plant. The company said it was closed for cleaning.

Lakeside Packers is the biggest beef slaughterhouse in Canada, handling 40 percent of the beef kill nationwide. It processes 3,500 cattle per day. According to workers and union officials, it is one of the most unsafe slaughterhouses in North America. Ten years ago the company was bought by the IBP, which was later taken over by the notoriously anti-union Tyson Foods, the world’s biggest meat processing company, which is headquartered in the U.S. state of Arkansas.

Over the past decade the composition of the workforce has changed dramatically. Hundreds of workers have been hired from Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and other countries. Conditions have also worsened with an intense “productivity drive.” Workers say some are forced to wear diapers on the line because the foremen don’t let them leave to use the washroom in a timely way.

The union at the plant was broken when a 1984 strike was defeated. Workers’ attempts to win back the union did not succeed until August 2004. At that time the UFCW was certified at the plant after 51.4 percent of the workers voted for the union.

Since then Tyson has refused to negotiate a contract. On June 18, some 70 percent of the workers voted to strike for a contract similar to the UFCW contract at Cargill in High River. Local 401 President Doug O’Halloran told the Militant that at the beginning of the year the Cargill workers won a $2 an hour wage increase. Referring to the Tyson bosses, he said, “They want to beat the union into the ground so they can send a message to all Tyson workers that it is not worth it to fight for a union.”

On July 16 the UFCW issued a notice setting July 20 as a strike deadline and demanding a negotiated contract or binding arbitration to get an agreement. Tyson rejected the demand and began organizing to bus potential scabs into the plant. The union held picket captain meetings to prepare a walkout. Union members set up portable toilets and other necessities for a strike in front of the plant. The government then imposed the 60-day “cooling-off period” banning strikes and lockouts.

At three union meetings July 20-21 UFCW officials urged workers to return to the job and use the next 60 days to strengthen support for the union. O’Halloran said union representatives would go house to house in Brooks and Medicine Hat, another nearby town, to speak to union members about the government action and the need to continue the fight for a union contract.  
 
 
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