Federated Cooperatives Limited announced today that it will provide special cash payments to help independent lease operators – truckers – who they say have lost income because of blockades by UNIFOR during the on-going labour dispute at the Co-op Refinery in Regina.
FCL said in a news release today that the payments are approximately 75% of what they would normally be paid. It will also be applied, retroactively, to lease operators in Regina and Carseland, Alberta as well as Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The special cash payments from FCL are going to approximately 40 lease operated trucking companies with up to 160 trucks seeing the benefit.
At the beginning of the month, UNIFOR barricaded the Co-op Refinery in Regina , and FCL’s facility in Carseland, Alberta. FCL had also indicated similar tactics were used in Winnipeg.
Cardlocks elsewhere in Saskatchewan, including Saskatoon, and other locations in Alberta have also been barricaded.