More than 70 members of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers are on the picket line outside the Heidelberg Materials cement plant on Ross Road in the Tilbury area.
The 76 unionized workers, with Local D-277, were locked out as of Monday morning as negotiations between the company and union stumbled.
Bargaining had been on-going since their contract expired last May, with mediation about to begin when the company served a lockout notice, said Kevin Forsyth, business manager for boilermakers District 11 Western Canada.
He said the company wants to be able to contract out some work to non-unionized people for work that the union has traditionally done.
“The issue at hand is, for us, we don’t want to lose jobs and we don’t want non-union people doing our work,” said Forsyth.
The company doesn’t want to contract out all the work, union members will still have jobs and work overtime, but the company wants to contract out certain overtime work, he added.
“They want to contract out what’s always been our work.”
Since the contract expired the company and union have met about nine times but nothing has been resolved, he said.
A wage proposal from the company hasn’t even been discussed because the union is focused on preserving jobs.
They don’t know how long they’ll be on the picket line.
“Right now, we’re committed to staying out as long as we have to, to get them to take their take-aways (contracting out) off the table,” Forsyth said.
The union is prepared to bargain in good faith on the issue of wages and there are other proposals that the union is agreeable to, he added.
He added that currently, there’s a good supply of cement powder on hand and some trucks are crossing the picket line to deliver that product but eventually that will run out.
With another plant in Metro Vancouver undergoing maintenance, “It’s going to be scarce to find cement powder here pretty soon,” he said.
Heidelberg didn’t respond to multiple phone calls by the Optimist for comment.