The second day of a strike by custodial and other workers at Wilfrid Laurier University featured many employees cross the picket lines, while some of those who continued demonstrating outside the school’s Waterloo campus were struck by a car.
Nobody was seriously injured in the incident during which picketers were struck, but that it happened at all was enough cause for concern for some members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 926.
“It is frustrating to have people be that aggressive,” said Donald Krall, a striking custodian who was hit in the first incident.
“This person … continued driving forward, hitting a fellow (union) member and then bumping into my knee three times before I stepped out of the way.”
A second time, a frustrated driver got very close to the picketers, but no contact was made.
CUPE Local 926 represents a little more than 100 custodial, trades and groundskeeping staff at Laurier.
They started their strike Sunday morning, more than a year after the expiry of their last contract.
Union leaders have said that there are two key issues separating the sides – post-retirement benefits, and the school’s move to change contract language so that, according to the union, it could hire contract workers for jobs currently done by CUPE 926 members.
School officials have said that their proposals are based on an increasingly challenging financial environment, and that they prefer them to taking money out of classrooms.
Many union members opted to ignore the strike and continue working at their jobs on Monday.
Allan Savard, the president of the union local, estimated that “at least” 80 of his members had chosen to cross the picket lines, leaving less than 20 outside for most of the day.
He said he understood where they were coming from, given some of them needed to work for financial reasons.
“There’s no ill feelings there. They crossed for their own reasons, and that’s OK with us,” he said.
With reporting by Leena Latafat
