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Union says member hurt on picket line by security vehicle

By: Arielle Godbout

Posted: 08/13/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

THE union representing striking nursing home workers in Selkirk claims one of its members was hospitalized for a minor injury Tuesday after a security guard drove through the picket line and ran over her foot.On Tuesday, Janice Chase, a business representative for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 987, and four other picketers surrounded a woman in a car who they had identified as a security guard. That's when a man, whom Chase said she believed was the security guard's superior, showed up from inside the nursing home.

"He came down the gravel road, she rolled down her window, and he said 'hit them if you have to,'" Chase said. "I heard it crystal clear."

Chase alleged the woman then aggressively drove through the picket line. While most of the picketers managed to get out of the way, one woman's foot was run over, she said. A second woman with high blood pressure was brought to the hospital for observation after becoming distressed by the event, Chase added.

Fourteen cooks and dietary aides at Betel Home Foundation Nursing Home have been on strike since last week over their wages.

Chase said that Compass Group Canada -- the company that operates the nursing home -- has hired replacement workers along with security guards during the strike.

"We are picketing, and holding up deliveries and the scabs," Chase confirmed.

Brenda Brown, Compass Group Canada's vice-president of human resources, said the company was aware of an incident at the nursing home on Tuesday.

"The incident is under investigation and until it's resolved I'm not at liberty to comment," Brown said, explaining that Compass is co-operating fully with police. "The description of the (incident) that I received was significantly different," she added.

Brown confirmed that Compass had hired a security guard, but said to the best of her knowledge only one guard was employed. Compass made the decision Tuesday to no longer have a security guard at the site, but Brown stressed the decision was made before the incident happened.

"The presence of a security guard was unsettling for the general populous," she explained.

Selkirk RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Gibbs said the incident was under investigation.

arielle.godbout@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 13, 2009 A6

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