A strike by insurance workers with the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation has brought up an interesting question in the province.While it appears management and union have hammered out a deal on their own the question that needs to be asked is whether the Saskatchewan government was on the right track as Premier Brad Wall was suggesting he was prepared to call the Legislature back in order to introduce legislation which would have forced workers back to their job.A tentative three-year deal put Wall's plan on hold, but one should be wondering why a government was even considering stepping into a situation between management and union when it's crop insurance.We are all aware that certain jobs are reasonably considered essential services and thus certain measures must be taken to ensure those people stay on the job.Firefighters are a prime example as they are neither allowed to strike, nor to be locked out by management. That decision keeps firefighters on the job, but at the same time it is a barrier to traditional bargaining practices. With no threat of work stoppage, firefighters and management, at least in Saskatchewan often end up pushed to binding arbitration because there is little leverage to force a deal at the negotiating table.Premier Brad Wall had told the media at the legislature in Regina, June 23 he would put an end to the labour dispute over a contract that expired two years ago.Wall's reasoning was that the union was walking out at time when they were most needed, citing the recent flooding and millions of unseeded acres that would be claimed through crop insurance programs in the province.Perhaps Wall needs to understand that a union doesn't exactly accomplish much if they strike at a time when no one really cares if they are at work or not.Teachers as an example garner a lot more attention striking in June when it might threaten final exams and actually completing the year, than they would striking in September when students are just heading back for a new school year.Crop insurance workers knew there was some leverage in striking when their services were most required and they hoped striking would force a deal, one more in their favour.But is the work of crop insurance workers so important that our provincial government should have been considering forcing them back to work?While certainly important to farmers, if crop insurance workers are suddenly critical enough to for the government to step between the normal processes of negotiations between the workers' union and management, any other job could be deemed just as critical.While no union exists, one could argue gas station attendants are equally critical, probably more so, because we all need gasoline to travel. Food stores clerks are critical because we need to have access to groceries.We sometimes think jobs are critical, but find out they aren't. The current situation with postal services is an example. With more and more cheques directly deposited, invoices paid online and important parcels moved via courier, the affect of postal workers being off the job has been far less inconvenient than most probably expected, and the union no doubt hoped.Certainly unions in Saskatchewan were vocal in their concerns that the Saskatchewan Party was too management friendly and cast a rather wide net in determining what workers are deemed essential, thus limiting access to the ability to strike in support of contract demands.The proposed handling of crop insurance workers by the Wall government will do nothing to alleviate that concern for unions, and only muddies the waters in terms of what should reasonably be deemed jobs critical enough to suspend normal contract negotiating tactics through legislation.
