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The Queen's Bench has upheld a May decision of the Saskatchewan Labor Relations Board regarding a lockout at the Wheat City Metals scrap metal processing facility. As a result of the decision, thirty-nine United Steelworkers are to be paid seven weeks of lost wages for the lockout that had been imposed by their employer.

The company had initially refused to comply with the Labor Relations Board's decision by launching a judicial review of the decision ordering it to pay up within 14 days. The workers, members of Steelworkers' Local 5917, were locked out in April and May of this year, returning to negotiations with the assistance of a government-appointed mediator.

"We are pleased that the court has ruled that the LRB's decision must stand and that the company has informed us it will pay our members," says Steelworkers' staff representative Mike Pisak, who chaired the union's negotiating committee.

A three-year collective agreement, retroactive to January 1, 2005, was reached through mediation in late August.

The Steelworkers represents 280,000 workers in all sectors of the Canadian economy.

Wheat City Metals, Regina, Sask., Canada, is a subsidiary of Ipsco Inc.

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