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Justice Arthur Lutz ruled that none of the involved parties did enough to control the relentless and escalating violence on the picket line that summer.

He assigned almost equal blame to the union, Royal Oak Mines and Roger Warren, who was convicted of the murders.

Lutz also assigned a share of the damages to Pinkerton's security, two union activists and the N.W.T. government.

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Dec 16 CBC story

edited to add

But the widows should sue!

[ 16 December 2004: Message edited by: Bacchus ]

The workers would have quietly frozen their butts off on the picket line and the mine would have lost production. Sooner or later they would have cut a deal and everyone would have been back to work.

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Their widows don't deserve that venom.

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Those 20 fatherless children do not deserve adult acrimony/hate being spewed at them, like they could say "no dad don't do this" or something, not!!!

Giant trial sets new standard

What I found disturbing was the following:

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A “replacement worker” who now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder will receive $600,000 worth of damages.

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It's very difficult to muster any sympathy for the stress suffered by a scab. There's no better evidence of the lopsided legal system than that such "stress" be compensated when people who lose their livelihood by such action get...squat. ***SQUAT!*****

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The court also awarded additional damages of $600,000 to James O'Neil, a miner who was one of the first people to arrive at the scene of the blast.

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I'm assuming that Mr. O'Neil was a miner, and not a 'replacement worker'. So clearly the damages in this case were given to those directly affected by the blast, not the labour dispute in general.

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There's no better evidence of the lopsided legal system than that such "stress" be compensated when people who lose their livelihood by such action get...squat. ***SQUAT!*****

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Actually, this isn't evidence at all. The damages were awarded to victims of the blast. Expecting damages to be given to those who weren't, and then holding this case up as an example of injustice when that didn't happen, is poor logic.

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This is equivalent to saying those children whose parents die fighting in an unjust illegal war deserve no sympathy or support.

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Sympathy and support, sure. Compensation, not necessarily.

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Originally posted by ronb:
Sympathy and support, sure. Compensation, not necessarily.

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I was actually talking about sympathy and support and not the monetary award at all. As posters above mine said and/or implied they did not have any for the kin.

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Did Mom and Dad volunteer for duty in an illegal war??

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There is no draft currently

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Should the population of the country they died oppressing be expected to pay compensation to the children of their oppressors?

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Because a lockout will inevitably drive a worker to commit mass murder, and the company "should have known"?? Or what?

Here are the particulars:

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The CAW will appeal the Royal Oak Mine court ruling released on December 16.
A judge from the Northwest Territories Supreme Court found in a 419-page ruling that the CAW was 22 per cent liable in damages with respect to the deaths of nine miners at the Royal Oak Mine in Yellowknife on September 18, 1992.
The CAW will appeal several critical errors in law made by the court regarding the mining tragedy including issues concerning the CAW’s status at the time of the explosion in September of 1992 and the CAW’s responsibility regarding an act independently taken by an individual. (Roger Warren is serving a life sentence in Manitoba’s Stony Mountain prison for nine convictions of second-degree murder. The nine men died when their mine car hit a bomb underground in the mine during a strike).
The CAW will also appeal judicial findings regarding the union’s actions in the summer of 1992 when the CAW provided support, like many other unions, to the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers, the miners’ union. The CAW was not the bargaining agent for Giant mine workers at that time. Two years later CASAW merged with the CAW.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
You're suggesting the Union is blameless in this workers choice to murder, but somehow the company isn't??

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Yes, I am suggesting that. The company brought in the scabs. It is obvious they knew there was danger as they hired Pinkerton agents to protect the scabs. Thereby they created a climate of enhanced danger for the scabs.

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Because a lockout will inevitably drive a worker to commit mass murder, and the company "should have known"?? Or what?

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The company should not have brought scabs into a already volatile situation, and when peoples children are starving while they are on the strike line it can push the best person over the edge. Though for most not to murder.

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Either everyone who created this fucked-up situation is in some measure responsible, or else only the bomber is.

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Ah, that would be the company for falling to negotiate an agreement and hiring scabs. That would be the Pinkertons who failed to do their job, and the murderer.

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If the union contributed, they contributed. Please don't act as though they were somehow "forced" to.

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It is obvious they knew there was danger as they hired Pinkerton agents to protect the scabs.

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Uh, are you suggesting that this danger didn't come directly from the workers/Union?

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Thereby they created a climate of enhanced danger for the scabs.

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Only if the miners created that danger. If you're going to argue that a danger existed, but the miners weren't the actual and direct cause of that danger, then you're just being totally ridiculous.

Also, may I add, the fact that 9 replacement workers were murdered does suggest that the company wasn't out of line to hire security.

And please, for the love of God, don't try to tell me that the danger only occurred when the company took steps to alleviate that danger. That's like suggesting that a robber wasn't going to rob a bank until he saw the security guard and then felt he had to. Nonsense.

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when peoples children are starving while they are on the strike line it can push the best person over the edge. Though for most not to murder.

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If you're advocating violence on the grounds that everyone was angry, take it elsewhere. I have no time for any bullshit about "understandable" murder.

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Okay how did they contribute????

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But the time the company paid the scabs their wages and the security company their fees, they most likely could have settled the contract demands for the same amount spent. Obviously they were trying to union break and nothing more. That reality is inciting violence.

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If the company felt the situation was charged enough to hire security, why would they endanger the well being or lives of scabs and have them work anyway?

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Because if they didn't, they'd be at the beck and call of anyone with the potential to create a dangerous situation. So they took precautions.

I'm sure they believed, at the time, they'd perhaps need to protect their replacements from thrown objects, threats, etc., and not high explosives.

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But the time the company paid the scabs their wages and the security company their fees, they most likely could have settled the contract demands for the same amount spent.

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I'd love to see an accounting of this, but I doubt it. And what's more, they'd be telling the Union "You can have anything you want, as long as you threaten something more costly". I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to make business decisions based on the threat of violence.

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If 2 union activists were part of it, as he history shows that still does not suggest the union incited them either.

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There were many violent and ugly strikes in that period. And it was the Mulroney government most responsible for giving an official "okay" for companies driven more by anti-union ideology than good business practises to go to war against organized labour.

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And it was the Mulroney government most responsible for giving an official "okay" for companies driven more by anti-union ideology than good business practises to go to war against organized labour.

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Yes this I'll agree with. The decade prior to the Royal Oak mine lockout was "open season" on the labour movement.

During a strike by CUPW members against Canada Post during the Mulroney era the government gave the okay to the crown corporation to bus scabs across picket lines. There had been plenty of strikes at Canada Post but never ever did they hire scabs. Alot of the buses and mail trucks were being driven by members of motorcycle gangs.

They even used a chopper to deliver scabs to the South Central Postal Facility in Toronto...that is until the neighbours complained very loudly.

They also were bugging union office telephones.

This was the political climate created during the "lyin Brian" era. Don't forget that a couple of years before that his soulmate Ronald Reagan had fired all of the air traffic controllers in the United States and Margaret Thatcher had launched what was pretty much civil warfare against the National Union of Mineworkers.

In Alberta, Peter Pocklington had used the Edmonton city police as his private scab escort agency at the Gainer's plant. The Alberta construction industry with the help of the government had broken the Alberta construction unions.

Peggy Witte had set out deliberately to break CASAW and hired professional strikebreaking thugs to do the job. Make no mistake about it. That was Peggy Witte's objective from the get go. Hell Pinkerton's was created back in the 19th century to break strikes.

So the company had made an open declaration of war on the union in a climate of it being "open season" on the labour movement.

So in this process, some workers snapped and stupidly took matters into their own hands.

As for the union sharing "equal" responsibility with the company, that's pure bullshit. If a company's security contractor gets out of hand the company has some economic leverage over the contractor. They can cancel the contract and send the security thugs packing back to whatever slimey rock they crawled out from under.

If a union member gets out of hand, the union has very little leverage over that member. The worst thing that they can do is lift their membership card. When you're out of work anyway, and fighting to keep your job, what the hell kind of leverage is that?

Corporations and unions are not on an equal footing. There is a big difference in the power relationships.

I spoke to CUPW members, then, who made it very clear they had no love for the union, were quite happy with their situation, and were unwilling to go on strike.

My personal prediction was that about 50% of members would be willing to cross lines and the rest would slowly give in. Canada Post could baically write the terms of the contract within a few months.

There is an old saying that the union's best organizer is management.

With the decision to use scabs, with a nod and a wink from incompetent Mulroney government, a divided, weak union was suddenly strong and united. For the first time in the history of CUPW there was 100% strike support.

And when it was all over, tens of millions of dollars, tax payer's dollars, were spent so postal workers could return with a contract they would have agreed to in the first place.

Oh, and also for the first time since the unions inception in 1965, the majority of public opinion favoured the union.

Some of those killed in the explosion were former workers who crossed the line (as was Mr. O'Neil, the first on the scene). They did not do this lightly. I believe to truly understand why people became scabs in this lockout (no strike here people, they were locked out) you need to hear from these people. Yellowknife is an extremely expensive place to live. How can people go from making $120,000 a year (with a grade five education in some instances) to $10 a day on strike pay? You still have bills, you still have your lifestyle to upkeep, you still have children and wives and debts and mortgages and all the other things that suck up the money, whether its coming in or not. Let's not forget the atmosphere around Yellowknife at this time either. People put everything on the line when they crossed it. Vandalism on their houses and vehicles, threats of gang-rape on their wives, children being beaten in the schoolyard - all because they crossed the line. I don't think a single scab didn't try to do everything in their power to not cross the line before they did.

I loathe the fact that while the government, Royal Oak, the union, Roger Warren and Pickerton's were found at fault, Peggy Witte (aka Margaret Kent to you who have mines in your area owned by her) walked away without any responsbility. She played the game and played it well. She met with government officials, encouraging them not to take the union side (with their shows of violence, it was pretty easy); she used the RCMP like a personal police force; she conned all those East Coasters with no jobs to come up and work when they had no other options; she weaselled her way out of arbitration; and she played the union right into her hands. As long as they continued to push violence in their meetings, she was under no obligation to negoitate and no one was going to make her.

Don't get pissed off that some guys who were trying to feed their families crossed a line - get fucking mad that some American mine owner played a game with the mine and walked away with everything, including her reputation. She pocketed the cash and when Giant Mine was at the end of its life, had the company declare bankrupcy. Now that ecological disaster (weak understatement) will be paid for by each and every Canadian for years and years to come.

Personally, I really feel for the widows and their children. No one asks to die on the job. No one asks to be killed by one of their own. Doesn't matter if they crossed a line - the beef should have been with Peggy, not with some guys who needed the money.

He didn't know the situation until it was too late.

I wonder if this is true, and how often it happened there, if so.

Unions then would have to answer for any internal intimidation or threats against people having a different point of view. The membership would have to have the facts and examine the hard realities of collective bargaining.

One of these facts is that corporate leaders see downsizing and wage cuts (and the resultant improved bottom line) as a legitimate source of profit.

The CAW has been greatly successful in illustrating that this simplistic rationale is often flawed even when evaluated on its own terms.

What bothers me about Canadian Unionism is that there is a lack of information on the benefits of settlements and they are often so bad that the spin doctors lie about them to make the union look better and to justify their own pricy spin- doctor existence.

For example take a look at recent Public Service settlements. The only mitigating factor in all this was the prospect that the continuation of the strike meant more losses to the worker. Government was rigid and inflexible but it was never challenged in parliament.

Unionization suffers and the majority suffers because of scabbing. There is no legal right to it and it is a fundamentally immoral act. People should not starve while they are on strike, nor should they be but at risk of finacial disaster - hardship - yes, strict economy - yes but not driven to the point of murder and mayhem.

Government should enact laws that make the collective bargaining process humane and fair for all the parties. Encouraging employers to use scabs condones escalating immorality and violence.

The economics of any strike dictate that there is a point where both sides lose. The employer loses production and saves on wage costs. The employee loses wages but recoups on wage increases won through bargaining. This is simple math. There is flexibility here but if there are scabs padding the employers bottom line and this is supported by government, then everyone loses.

And I agree with those above who have fingered both the Mulroney government and Peggy Witte as the villains who got away.

That may not be totally apt since Frankenstein was kind of likeable and I don't like scabs but I think the analogy works. Given our situation though, when we returned to work, we had to work beside these people. It's not easy. There are people I haven't spoke to in almost 10 years. There are some people I used to consider personal friends who I no longer talk to.

The union, in its infinite wisdom, put in penalties which are unenforceable and in the end, keep the bargaining unit divided. In our local, we offered amnesty to any scabs the first time around who joined us on the picket lines the last time. That helped rehabilitate a few of them. All was forgiven from the moment they joined the picket line.

In our last strike, there were some hardcore scabs from Day 1, but there was also an attrition factor where a few people slipped in to work as time went on. One fellow who we all like, and who has a child with severe disabilities that require a lot of attendant care and money, went in (and told us he was going in). It turned out to be the day before we settled. We phoned him to tell him to get his ass outside on the last day of the strike. He did.

So, while some people are scabs because of selfishness and individualism, they're still people. We would have never considered any kind of violent response as a union or a picket line despite the amount of anger they engendered.

Having employees and making use of their dedication and skills is a priviledge that the union codifies and makes marketable. Most good managers appreciate that and that is may be partly why we have fewer strikes than we do.

[ 01 January 2005: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Originally posted by Woodnymph:
Some of those killed in the explosion were former workers who crossed the line (as was Mr. O'Neil, the first on the scene). They did not do this lightly. I believe to truly understand why people became scabs in this lockout (no strike here people, they were locked out) you need to hear from these people. Yellowknife is an extremely expensive place to live. How can people go from making $120,000 a year (with a grade five education in some instances) to $10 a day on strike pay? You still have bills, you still have your lifestyle to upkeep, you still have children and wives and debts and mortgages and all the other things that suck up the money, whether its coming in or not. Let's not forget the atmosphere around Yellowknife at this time either. People put everything on the line when they crossed it. Vandalism on their houses and vehicles, threats of gang-rape on their wives, children being beaten in the schoolyard - all because they crossed the line. I don't think a single scab didn't try to do everything in their power to not cross the line before they did.

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An interesting post, with some very material considerations. In the end people have to pay their bills, and that's the operative consideration in voting to strike for higher pay, and in some instances voting to settle.

And it's also the operative consideration when the overall situation isn't moving, but the affected individual's financial numbers are very definitely moving, to do something out of line.