Lakeside Packers strike tests resolve of beleaguered Alberta beef industry

BROOKS, Alta. — An injunction limiting picket activity at Canada’s largest slaughterhouse didn’t entirely silence striking workers today.

The three-day labour battle — which has been tainted by recent violence — resumed today at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alta. Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 are striking in a bid to get a first contract from Tyson Foods, the U.S.-based company that owns the slaughterhouse.

The Court of Queen’s Bench granted an injunction Saturday that prohibits the union from stopping employees from crossing the picket lines, according to CBC News. The court also ordered that there be no more than 50 pickets at the line at one time. The company planned to use “strikebreakers” to keep the plant operating.

What now, brown cow? As if Alberta’s beef industry needed this strike.

But tensions were expected to be high today as the union’s president Doug O’Halloran — along with two company managers — are facing criminal charges stemming from a car accident last week that left O’Halloran injured. The three men face two counts of willful damage and one count of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

The incident occurred just after the windows of buses transporting workers across picket lines to the plant were smashed.

The workers had been set to strike in July before the province stepped in and imposed a disputes inquiry board. The panel drafted a tentative agreement, which was accepted by the workers, but rejected by the company. Tyson came back with a revised offer, which was rejected by the union.

Tyson has indicated it will send cattle to its US facilities if it is unable to process them at Lakeside, which has a daily slaughter capacity of 3,800 cattle.

Some beef industry workers are wondering if the strike will further damage an industry devastated by a cattle export ban to the US because of a mad cow incident in 2003.

“Like I said not to long ago, the only guys left in this business are the ones that really want to be here. Everyone else has gone on to do something else,” Keith Horsburgh, owner of Brooks-based Grace Cattle Haulers, told TodaysTrucking.com this afternoon.

On the bright side, Horsburgh says, this time of year, “there’s so much going on” that the impact of the Lakeside strike is somewhat mitigated. “All the cattle are coming off the pastures, and the cow sales have begun. The markets are triple of the business that they used to be,” says Horsburgh, who admits Lakeside work makes up about 50 percent of his business.

That said, the US border couldn’t have reopened at a better time. “If this (strike) would have happened before, we would have been in some real (trouble).”

It’s anyone’s guess when the current conflict could end, says Horsburgh. He says that the violence surrounding the labour dispute isn’t helping bring an end to the situation. “They think they can deal with things on a physical basis rather than sitting down at a table. That’s not good news. Not one bit.”

— with files from CBC News