Goons and thuggery return to Ontario picket lines

Private security companies get militant with striking workers

By: Brit Angus

  The days of the Pinkertons may be back. At the turn of the last century, the Pinkerton "detective" agency was a strikebreaking army for hire. Companies regularly turned to companies like the Pinkertons for muscle in dealing with labour unrest.
  But that was the bad old days of labour relations, right? Wrong. What is becoming increasingly common in Canada, and has been a 'standard' company response in the U.S. for almost two decades, is a militant response to union activity. The modern version of "muscle for hire" are the private security forces being brought in to protect company interests during strikes.
  They offer services ranging from recruiting replacement workers to high tech surveillance of strikers and their families. The standard MO is a military-style encampment with balaclavas, jackboots and bulletproof vests. As one labour observer puts it "the fashion is definitely black". The companies say the security forces are needed to maintain picket line peace. Labour advocates accuse them of bringing unnecessary muscle and intimidation. This muscle has been used against striking mill workers, nurses and even day care workers.
 

Companies say hired security forces protect their interests during strikes. Labour advocates - and Falconbridge nickel operations striker Jerome Strickland - say guards use intimidation tactics.

  Jerome Stricklen was one of 1200 workers on strike at Falconbridge's nickel operations in Sudbury. He was driving home in his van with his two young children, when, as Stricklen recalls, "Suddenly, my little girl yelled out 'watch out'." Right in front of him, coming from the opposite direction, was a vehicle belonging to Accu-fax, the private security firm hired by Falconbridge. The vehicle cut him off, causing him to slam on his breaks. Another Accu-fax vehicle pulled up alongside him.
  "It was a good thing I wasn't going too fast, or I would have hit him," says Stricklen. Within seconds a police cruiser pulled up. "Out came the guns and I was pulled out of my van. They slapped on the handcuffs. I didn't know what was going on." The police took Stricklen to their cruiser while Accu-fax blocked off the road. The children were left in the van.
  Stricklen says he could hear them yelling for him. He says he was held for a number of hours while the children were left crying in the van. Sergeant Wayne Foster of the Greater Sudbury Police services says the police were trying to locate Stricklen's wife during that time.
  According to Foster, Accu-fax had phoned the police saying they believed that Stricklen had a weapon in his van. No weapon was found. Foster suggests that it was an honest mistake as an object found in the vehicle did resemble a weapon. Stricklen says the object was his kid's bicycle horn. The police later apologized but Stricklen is not impressed. Months later, he still gets distressed discussing the event.
  He says Accu-fax was following workers all the time, and that he couldn't pull up to a traffic light without them trying to videotape him. Other striking workers say their cell phone calls were monitored. Some claim their residences and families were videotaped. They say there was intimidation off company property.
 

Are hired security forces modern day strikebreakers?

  HighGrader phoned Accu-fax to hear their side of these allegations. After numerous phone attempts, we managed to reach Darrell Parsons, founder of Accu-fax.
  Mr. Parsons has told other media in the past that he does not see their role as 'strikebreaking' but rather as protecting the rights of companies to continue operations during a strike and use replacement workers.
  Mr. Parsons, however, was not so forthcoming with us. He said he "could not speak" to us. When pressed and reminded that he spoke to other media, he said "They are not like your magazine."
  When Sudbury journalist and frequent Straight Goods contributor Mick Lowe and videographer Stuart Cryer tried to get the lowdown on Accu-fax, it landed them in jail.
  The two journalists had headed up to the picket lines early one morning in the hopes of filming the Accu-fax crews in operation.
  "Down at the bottom was the picket line, then further up, maybe 100 yards, were the security guys. It was really like two battle-lines," explained Lowe, "with a no man's land in between."
  The no man's land was clearly a no-go zone for anyone but replacement workers or Accu-fax security. Lowe and Cryer decided to step out and make their way up to Accu-fax lines.
  "Some of them were wearing black balaclavas, with bulletproof vests, jackboots, the whole thing. And we started walking towards them, videotaping them as we went, and they were busy videotaping us. We got right up to them, to their vehicles, and they asked us to get off Falconbridge property."
  Lowe says he kept talking while Cryer kept filming. "I was saying they didn't look like they were having much fun, that they should loosen up." At one point, Cryer reached up to flip up the baseball cap of one of the security guys in order to see his face. Right then, the gig was up.
  The journalists were grabbed and the police called. When Sudbury police arrived, says Lowe, they only listened to the Accu-fax side of the story. Both were charged with trespassing and Cryer was given an added charge of assault.
  Lowe's chance to get a comment from Accu-fax came while waiting at the police station. One of the Accu-fax men came in and Lowe went over to him. Lowe was kidding him about the bitter cold weather they were having to work in and suggested that Accu-fax get itself unionized for better conditions. According to Lowe, the Accu-fax guard turned to him and said, "I don't really believe in unions because I don't believe in promoting the weak, the lame and the lazy."
 

Hired security forces offer companies facing labour disputes services like high-tech surveillance and recruiting of replacement workers

  It might seem like a far cry from the nickel mines of Sudbury to the Victoria Day Care Centre in Toronto, but not for Accu-fax. Child care workers at the day care have been on strike since last June and Accu-fax has been an integral part of the strike.
  In fact, says Diane Dobusz, one of the 27 striking child care workers, Accu-fax was called in even before the workers were actually on the picket line. "Two days before we went out, the security was already hired. They took away people's keys," explained Dobusz, "and it was pretty clear to us if we didn't strike we would be in a lock out situation."
  The company who hired Accu-fax was a non-profit community agency. "There was really no need for this kind of muscle," Dobusz said, "But there they were, two or three guards every day, videotaping us. It got pretty nasty. Sometimes they would say lewd things about the women workers. The head guy, a guy called Oliver, would follow us around, and he was seen by some parents casing the neighbourhood. Finally, after enough complaints from our neighbours, they moved inside the building."
  At one point, 50-year-old Dobusz approached the day care's business manager as he was entering the building. She wanted to raise some issues about the strike. "He (an Accu-fax guard) got right in between me and this fellow, and was shouting in my face to get away. I told him I have a right to talk to the manager, to raise these issues, and to stop touching me. He shouted that he wasn't touching me but I said 'that's your belly on me'." Only recently, with the day care facing closure, has Accu-fax been called off.
  Robert Fox is with the Communications Branch at the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). He says it's increasingly common to see companies like Accu-fax not just in the industrial sector, but also during labour disputes within the social services.
  "With the Victoria Day Care, we have primarily younger workers, women workers, who spend their days caring for children and are not generally perceived as a threat to society, yet the employers still see fit to bring in these goons."
  Fox says that the use of private security under these circumstances is inappropriate and represents a deliberate strategy to intimidate. According to an article in Covert Action Quarterly, a similar situation occurred at a teachers strike in Cleveland when security forces "... invaded a Cleveland high school... complete with shields, bulletproof vests and in some cases side-arms..."
  How does this heavy-handed approach play out in the arena of public opinion? Don't the companies worry that the optics of this kind of bullying are going to backfire and promote public support for striking workers?
  "What they count on," says Fox, "is that the media won't cover it. Maybe in a community like Sudbury you have community support and interest, but in Toronto it certainly isn't the case. So the only audience becomes the people on the picket line. People don't go on strike lightly. In most instances, the majority of people on any given picket line have never been on strike before, have never been pushed around before, and here they are, confronted by these security guys whose job is to communicate intimidation."
  Most union organizers agree that the presence of private security changes the manner in which labour disputes play out. Unions in the United States have been grappling with the use of private security since the 1980s. "We've taken a page from the private security companies' own books," explains John Duray, a USWA rep in Pittsburgh. "The front line shock troops, they're pretty disciplined, so we have to be disciplined. They are there to gather evidence, so we've started filming them back. If they are going to provoke an incident, we're going to get it on film."
  Videotapes have proven an invaluable tool for the companies in their efforts to gain injunctions and limit the number of workers on a picket line. One of the more notorious security companies, Vance Security, took literally thousands of hours of videotape during the Pittson Coal Co. strike involving the United Mine Workers. The tapes were used to justify over $60 million in fines against the union (Bacon, Covert Action Quarterly, March/97). The fines were later overturned.
  "Say you have a steel mill," explains Duray, "and there are a dozen gates. The company decides to bring in replacement workers through the most heavily picketed gate, trying to provoke an incident. Well, we are going to get that on film, we can show that in court, especially if there are other gates that were free and open."
  The problem, says one union observer, is that the private security companies have "absolutely no interest in a contract settlement". Their bread and butter comes during protracted disputes, and this changes the rules of the game.

Brit Angus is Publisher of HighGrader magazine, a Straight Goods partner.

Posted: May 21, 2001

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